TURSTEN, Helene 1954-

PERSONAL:

Born 1954, in Göteborg, Sweden.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Sunne/Vaermland, Sweden. Office—c/o Author Mail, Soho Press, 853 Broadway, New York, NY 10003.

CAREER:

Writer.

WRITINGS:

Krossade tanghästen, 1998, translation by Steven T. Murray published as Detective Inspector Huss, Soho Press (New York, NY), 2003.

Nattrond (title means "The Second Murder"), 1999.

Tatuerad torso, 2000.

Glasdjaevulen (title means "Death in the Parsonage"), 2002.

SIDELIGHTS:

Police procedurals are as popular in Europe as they are in America, and Swedish author Helene Tursten has written a series of them based in her hometown of Göteborg. Her series heroine is Inspector Irene Huss, a forty-something mother of twins who is also a judo expert and a detective with the city homicide department. In her debut novel, translated as Detective Inspector Huss, the likable policewoman is drawn into a difficult murder investigation that spirals into a web of multiple slayings, bombed buildings, and a tangle of connections between some of Sweden's top businessmen and dangerous gangs of drug dealers and neo-Nazi skinheads. Irene's life is further challenged by her daughter's unsavory boyfriend and by thinly veiled sexism among her colleagues.

In his Booklist review of Detective Inspector Huss, Bill Ott noted that the Swedish milieu "forms a compelling backdrop for the story." A Kirkus Reviews contributor liked the characters, noting that they provide "a strong group to root for." A critic for Publishers Weekly praised Inspector Huss in particular, declaring her "smart, competent, but fallible," and observed that the strength of Tursten's debut novel "augurs well for the future exploits of its heroine."

Tursten has written other "Inspector Huss" novels that have yet to be translated into English. As Caroline Cummins noted in January Online, "Tursten's Sweden may not be a rose-colored land, but neither is it a place of unrelenting gloom. It has its troubles, like anywhere else, but from the point of view of Irene Huss, it's also a most worthwhile place to be. And if the rest of her books make the leap into English, it'll be good to see more of Huss' world."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, October 15, 1999, Bill Ott, review of Detective Inspector Huss, p. 393.

Kirkus Reviews, October 1, 2002, review of Detective Inspector Huss, p. 1433.

Publishers Weekly, November 18, 2002, review of Detective Inspector Huss, p. 44.

ONLINE

January Online,http://www.januarymagazine.com/ (June 12, 2003), Caroline Cummins, "Northern Lights."*