Sins of the Fathers

Night Rounds [by] Helene Tursten

[New York; Soho Press, 2012]

978-1-61695-006-4; $25.00

When the lights go back up at the Löwander Private Hospital, the ICU nurse, Marianne, is missing, the surgical patient Peterzén is dead, and the other nurse, Siv Persson, sees the ghost of Nurse Tekla mounting the stairs in the moonlight. Moments later, the security guard finds Nurse Marianne dead in the basement, lying across the back-up generator, which was also dead, its powerlines cut.  She has ligature marks around her neck, and is missing one shoe, which was found later in the elevator.

The Violent Crimes Division puts in an appearance early the next day in the persons of Superintendent Sven Andersson and Detective Inspector Irene Huss.  They begin to ask questions.  They are told about the love affair rumored to have happened between the formidable Dr. Hilding Löwander, the father of the current director of the hospital, Dr. Sverker Löwander, and Nurse Tekla.  It was broken off when Mrs. Löwander became pregnant with her son, and Tekla hanged herself in a garret room. Of course, the inspectors tell Nurse Siv that they do not believe that a ghost was responsible for the murders.

But there are still odd things at the hospital.  Nurses disappear, and aspects of the hospital’s history, and the history of its key family, take on greater and greater importance.  Then a newspaper article comes out saying that a witness had seen the ghost on the grounds.  Huss goes to see the journalist, Kurt Höök.  She begins to search for the witness Höök only knows as Mama Bird.

They find a garden shed on the grounds of the hospital, which looks to be one of Mama Bird’s hidey-holes.  But even when they stake it out, they do not find her.  Visiting with a street person at one of the downtown soup kitchens, they learn her name.  They also discover that she had a relationship to the hospital.  Then the shed is torched.  The river that goes near the shed begins to flood because of a blockage under a bridge.  The bicycle that belonged to a missing nurse named Linda is found there, holding back the dead and mangled body of Mama Bird.

The body of the missing Linda is then found hanging in the same garret room where Nurse Tekla was found.  More hospital people are interviewed, as are both of Sverker Löwander’s wives, past and present.  Even the wife of the dead patient Peterzén and her son are visited.  Old records are looked at. Old luggage is gone through.  Personnel from other hospitals, who know the players in this drama are also talked to by the inspectors. The books of the hospital, which show that it is bankrupt, are looked at.  At last, Inspector Huss puts together the whole story, which has a lot to do with the past, and also the future, as it turns out.  The final scene is pretty exciting, as Irene Huss is very nearly killed by the culprit.

There are some really nice touches to this book, beyond the really depressing scene set at the old hospital.  There are lovely insights into Irene Huss’ family life, as well as the very human dynamics of the Violent Crimes Division in Göteborg, Sweden.  A very satisfying police procedural. Recommended. ~ lss-r

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Library book.