Midnight In Malmö: The Fourth Inspector Anita Sundström Mystery (Inspector Anita Sundström Mysteries Book 4)

This is a fascinating story that combines three story lines that all come together in the end. It's one of those can't put in down mysteries. I highly recommend it.

I was so pleased when this fourth Anita Sundstrom mystery was available. I had read the first three and really enjoyed the locale, the characters, and the mysteries in each. Midnight in Malmo is a bit different, which is a tribute to an author with a successful series; the temptation is to continue very much in the same vein. There are two distinct threads to this novel and two primary locales as well. Anita is now on holiday some distance from Malmo at a seaside cottage, and her love interest from an earlier book, Kevin, is visiting from England. They are in the midst of mysterious events. Simultaneously, Chief Inspector Moberg, Wallen, and Hakim are deeply enmeshed in a murder investigation in Malmo. The mystery surrounding Anita and Kevin is tied to the Cold War years, spies, counterspies, and political power. While I am not a fan of wartime stories as a rule, I found the history and Sweden's involvement (or not) particularly interesting. I fully expected the two different mysteries to come together as one with some tie. Not to give anything away, I will say the ending chapters were a surprise and well-thought out. The writing is very skilled in this book so that the reader very clearly separates the two stories and keeps them straight as they unfold. Never once did I have to look back to clarify a point or remember a character's role. So this series just gets better and better. It can't be too soon for me to revisit Sweden, enjoy more of Moberg's idiosyncrasies, and join Anita and company in solving another mystery.

The twists in this book just kept coming. I read this one straight through as I couldn’t put it down. Wow! This series just gets better with each successive book.

This is the fourth in the Malmo series by Torquil MacLeod. Set in Sweden and featuring police detective Anita Sundstrom, the book has two story lines running concurrently: Anita is on a two-week vacation with her latest love interest Kevin, a British police officer. They are having a nice time and we learn a bit more about Anita's personality -- namely that she is rather tetchy and prickly. At the same time we learn that Chief Inspector Mohberg, he of the rancorous personality and never-ending hunger, actually has some good qualities too, as he and the team tackle the murder of a woman jogger.This is a fun series and it was nice to see a little character development. The action was well paced and the story was interesting. I quite like this series and am happy to see that MacLeod seems to enjoy being productive -- books come out regularly!One (albeit trivial) thing I didn't like was that it's more difficult to read a dual-plot book on a kindle as there are no clear section breaks as there would be on a printed page, so you are reading along in one plot, turn the "page" and don't realize for a bit that you've moved to the other plot.Books in the series are: Meet Me in Malmo, Murder in Malmo, Missing in Malmo and Midnight in Malmo. Might one suggest Mayhem in Malmo next -- that sounds exciting.

In my review of the third Anita Sundstrom mystery, Murder in Malmo, I expressed the hope that Torquil MacLeod would give Anita more supportive relationships in future books. And, in fact, one thread of this novel is her developing relationship with Kevin Ash, an English detective she invites to join her on vacation. They become involved in an informal murder investigation that has international implications reaching back to World War II. Paralleling their unofficial yet dangerous investigation is a more familiar police procedural plot unfolding back in Malmo. Through that murder investigation, MacLeod develops the characters of several of Anita’s colleagues. The reader is given access to the thought processes of the detectives, including Anita and Kevin; as a result, they all become more sympathetic characters, even Chief Inspector Moberg.In addition to the character development, I found the plot strong. Both investigations move quickly with enough developments that I hated to put the book down. Both have their twists, suspense, and tense denouements. Without giving the plot away, the way in which Anita is pulled back into her own police department’s investigation seemed quite creative, although I suspected that twist a bit before the detectives did.In addition to descriptions of Malmo and Skane, the reader learns something of the delicacies of Sweden’s international position during and after WWII. All in all, this is a very engaging Scandinavian murder mystery with interesting characters. I don’t think it would be necessary to have read the first three Anita Sundstrom mysteries in order to follow this one.

I’ve read the previous three Inspector Sundstrom mysteries and hoped this one would give them a fresh start. At first it seemed that way. She and Kevin are on vacation together. Then some old Soviet spy stuff comes up and two people end up dead and together they are off on the hunt. This part of the book had a lot of interesting history of Sweden during WW II and the Cold War - stuck as they are between Russia (USSR) and the west. It’s a pretty straightforward spy story with some maturing relationship thrown in. The other mystery is good too, and I didn’t twig to the one thing I should have early on. This made the twist surprising but also irritating as, once more, Anita is in personal jeopardy, something that annoys me as lazy drama. So the end left me fuming. I may keep going but I think Torquil MacLeod needs to give Anita a rest before she ends up in the loony bin.

.. that reach a desperate conclusion..It's quite some time since the last case and Anita is taking a holiday with Kevin the British policeman who helped to solve the Todd case. We split our time between the couple on holiday and a murder case back in Malmö which happened just after Anita went on leave.Her initially ambivalent relationship with Kevin begins to deepen as the pair find themselves questioning the supposed suicide of a retired diplomat who's in the process of writing his memoirs. When the writer Klas also dies in a sudden mysterious motorcycle crash this is a coincidence too far for Anita and they end up racing across Europe on the trail of the truth.The case back in Malmö is proving difficult to solve and Moberg is determined to crack it before Anita returns. The victim, Julia Akerman, turns out to be a high class call girl with a list of wealthy clients; the ones in Malmö have reason enough to want their liaisons kept quiet but sometimes it takes more than looking in the obvious places to solve a case.. it will take every member of the team to see the truth and get them to the finale in time.. will it be enough?

I read Torquil MacLeod’s Anita Sundstrom series, a while back. I thought it was time to catch up with her. This is crime, with a lovely Swedish flavour and a British author. Seriously pleasurable crime. Midnight in Malmo is the fourth book in the series.The story takes us to back to Malmo, Sweden. A jogger is stabbed to death in the park, near where Sundstrom lives. Fortunately Anita Sundstrom is on her holidays, with her English boyfriend, Kevin. She misses out on the action. Anita would probably not refer to Kevin as her boyfriend yet though. They are in the early stages of a relationship. We met DS Kevin Nash, in Missing in Malmo. The park murder is left to her keen sidekick, Hakim Mirza, and DCI Moberg to solve. Anita’s vacation with Kevin turns into a unofficial murder enquiry. Two of Anita’s close friends die in suspicious circumstances. One is a retired diplomat with some longstanding secrets to tell. Anita and Kevin are soon looking for answers in Germany, as well as Sweden. What they discover casts a light on Sweden’s neutral stance in the Cold War years.This was my kind of read. Addictive and puzzling. As usual, MacLeod delivers the kind of novel that makes you want to grab your suitcase and head for the nearest airport to visit Sweden. I remembered exactly why I was addicted to this series. I really am fond of Anita. It is great being back in her world. I am now dying to get hold of the next in the series, A Malmo Midwinter.Recommended.

Anita Sundstrom, while on holiday with DS Nash, who she met in Cumbria in the previous novel, is drawn into an unofficial investigation when two of her acquaintances die within a couple of days. One is seemingly a suicide and the other an accident, but Anita has her doubts, which are rejected by the local police in Ystad.Her unofficial investigation, despite being warned off and obstructed by the local police, leads to Berlin and then back to Sweden. The information they uncover is staggering, and has links to the 'Cold War' and the Swedish Intelligence Services.Back in Malmo her colleagues and her boss, DCI Moberg, are investigating the murder of a young jogger, which leads them to Geneva and back to Sweden. A high profile politician is implicated, and, despite being warned off by Commissioner Dahlbeck, Moberg confronts the politician in his usual 'bull at a gate' manner, in between snacks of kebab, pizza and McD's!The conclusion to this part of the plot also has severe repercussions for Anita herself, and culminates in another 'showdown' ending.Again descriptions of foreign 'locations' are lucid and picturesque, without being laboured, and bring them to life in a way that leads readers to believe they are actually there themselves.The main characters are developed further in a believable fashion, and brought to life for the reader ; Moberg leads the case with more 'hands on' direction, and insight, than usual, and finally seems to develop some respect for Hakim Mirza and a modicum of care for Anita's welfare.A brash new Inspector, Pontus Brodd, is introduced to the series, who wants to prove himself as 'one of the boys' but who proves to be sometimes inept and rather gullible, and jeopardises the investigation, inadvertently placing Anita in danger.Overall this is a great read with two plots - one a standard murder investigation with a genuinely surprise conclusion, and the other a conspiracy related murder which allows the author to include a lot of historical fact, in an interesting way, as a basis for the conjectured fiction which provides the entertainment.The multiple evocative locations and good plots, in this and previous novels, would make for an excellent TV series if more stories were available ; I hope that the author is currently working on ideas for a fifth 'Malmo' novel.(To get the best from the Malmo series they should be read in sequence - Meet, Murder, Missing, Midnight ; Each book has a discrete plot, but successive novels mention events from previous books and could give away part of their plots if read out of sequence.)

Inspector Anita Sundstrom from the Homicide Department in Malmo is back, though as the novel opens she is enjoying a fortnight's well earned leave. Back in Malmo a young woman has been killed while running through one of the city parks. The police are baffled as to the motive for, or perpetrator of the attack, and struggle to identify the victim.Meanwhile Sundstrom is enjoying her holiday in an island resort not far from Stockholm. One of the neighbouring chalets is occupied by a retired diplomat who has been diagnosed with terminal cancer and is eagerly striving to get his memoirs in order, drawing on the help of a local journalist. Sadly he succumbs before he can complete more than a small portion of his autobiography. Based upon the little insight he has had, the journalist is, however, convinced that his demise was not down to natural causes.Eager though she is to enjoy her deserved break from the office, Sundstrom is unable to resist being drawn in to the investigation, especially after she learns that the diplomat's father had played a vital role in events that would change the history of the whole world.Macleod writes simply and directly. He doesn't become sidetracked in deep characterisation, and leaves everything down to the plot. I have struggled to enjoy the recent wave of Scandinavian crime novels and prefer to take Macleod's ersatz British version. In fact, he is probably my favourite novelist called 'Torquil'!

I think I've given 5* to all of the 'Malmo' books, and this one is no exception. Anita is on holiday with new boyfriend Kevin an English copper, and who get themselves embroiled in a double murder with links to the Cold War. The rest of the team back in Malmo are trying to find the murderer of a jogger in Pildams Park. But the jogger murder involves Anita; albeit unknowingly.With a politician, a travel agent, a Pastor, a secret Swedish organisation, a trip to Berlin, memoirs of a spy and another copper who hates Anita as much as Anita hates her, AND a fleeting mention of comrade Lenin, all go to make a really interesting and unusual plot.Another great read from Torquil MacLeod that yet again I couldn't put down.