The G File by Hakan Nesser - Another Van Veeteren Masterpiece!

Think "Scandinavian Thriller" and it is a fair chance that your mind will conjure up snow-laden landscapes, small villages in which a handful of not-too-social-people dwell, all drenched more often than not in a fair bit of depression and gloom introspection. No, we are not saying that the folk who write on crime in the upper regions of Europe are bad thriller writers - nay, we actually think they spin better yarns than most of their brethren in England and across the Atlantic. It's just that they tend to be a bit on the morbid and moribund side when it comes to tone. You can almost see the darkness and the fog floating across the pages as you read most of them.

But not Hakan Nesser. 

No, Nesser does not write what people call 'comedic crime.' He is as much a thriller writer as a Henning Mankell or an Arnaldur Indridason. However, unlike those worthies (who are both very good incidentally), his books are lit up with rays of wit and humour. If he reminds me of anyone, it is of Peter Lovesey. Their business is grim, and crime is never trivialised, but the main characters do not roam around moping and philosophising to glory.  No, they do pull each other's leg occasionally and there is a fair bit of wit in the pages to keep you entertained, without making you go "oh, lord, what is the point of it all and why are we here."

Which of course brings me to Nesser's latest book to be released in India, The G File. It features arguably his most famous character Inspector Van Veeteren, and in fact is being considered by some as the last in the series of books involving him (it is the tenth). It revolves around the one case Van Veeteren had been unable to solve in his police career (he was very good, you know - darned good): in 1987, a person's wife died after he had ensured her life for an unusually high amount. Van Veeteren and his team (including the reliable Munster) are confident the husband is guilty - the wife had even hired a detective to keep an eye on him prior to her demise - but are unable to find any evidence of foul play. Complicating matters is the fact that the man suspected of the crime  (Jan G Hennan, the G File is named after him) is a class mate of Van Veeteren and has caused the good inspector  a great deal of harm in his youth, robbing him of a friend and perhaps even a beloved. 

All said and done, the guy is a jerk of the first order. And yet for all their efforts, Van Veeteren and Munster cannot put him away, as there is simply no evidence against him. Fifteen years later, after Van Veeteren has retired and is in the bookselling business, the man surfaces again. And again, there is a dead body. Will Van Veeteren get his man this time? Or will he stumble again and go to the grave with the one stain on an otherwise immaculate career. 

Nope, I am not telling you that bit. What I am, however, telling you is that The G File is Hakan Nesser in very fine form indeed. The man narrates the plot skilfully and like his Swedish and British brethren also weaves in the personal lives of his main protagonists into the tale. So Van Veeteren is not just worried about getting his man but also about the behaviour of his own teenaged son and his rapidly deteriorating marriage, and Munster worries about how he will react when he meets a former flame. No, I won't say the denouement is a satisfying one, but you are going to keep turning the pages until you reach it, simply because the G File is so well told. The chemistry between characters, whether it is the professor-student one with Van Veeteren and Munster or the easy camaraderie between Van Veeteren and Bausen is brilliant. And perhaps the greatest achievement of Nesser is the fact that he manages to pack in so many characters into one book and tell us a lot about them, with minimum confusion. The washed up detective, the weary former policeman,  the rash and impetuous young cop...they all spring to life in the pages of the G File. 

It spans more than six hundred pages. And if you find its size imposing, fear not. You will actually start feeling grateful that there is more to read as you get into the plot (by around page fifty), then will start getting concerned about what to read once you finish it, and as you near the end, you will find yourself torn between wanting to race to the climax or stretch it out, because hell, it is not likely that you will get something as good to read as this for a while. And with good reason, for it is unlikely that you will get anything as compelling to read for a while.

Read it. Be thrilled.

The G File is Hakan Nesser and Van Veeteren at close to their best. Is it the end for the latter? I won't tell you, but will just sit and thank God for the former. And Laurie Thompson, for being such an excellent translator. 

(click on the image above or the link below to purchase it from Amazon)