Håkan Nesser (born 21 February 1950) is a Swedish author and teacher who mainly writes crime fiction. He has won Best Swedish Crime Novel Award three times, and his novel Carambole won the prestigious Glass Key award in 2000. His books have been translated from Swedish into more than twenty languages.
Early life Håkan Nesser was born and grew up in Kumla, Örebro County. His first novel was published in 1988. He worked as a teacher in Uppsala until 1998 when he became a full-time author. In August 2006, Håkan Nesser and his wife Elke (a psychiatrist)The Sunday Times, 2009-05-10 moved to Greenwich Village in New York. A few years later, they moved to London since it was easier for his wife to find work there. They now live in Furillen on the island Gotland in the Baltic Sea.
Criminal conviction On 14 June 2024, Håkan Nesser was sentenced by the Svea Court of Appeal to one year and six months in prison for three counts of aggravated tax evasion. In February 2025, the Supreme Court of Sweden decided to reject Nesser's request for leave to appeal. The crime had come to the attention of the judicial system thanks to the Paradise Papers.
Characters and themes A recurring main character is named Van Veeteren, a detective in the early novels and later the owner of an antique books shop. These books play out in a fictitious city named Maardam, said to be located in northern Europe in a country which is never named but resembles Sweden, the Netherlands, Poland and Germany. The names however are mostly Dutch.
With his 2006 crime novel Människa utan hund ("Human without Dog") Nesser introduced a new main character, Inspector Gunnar Barbarotti, a Swedish police inspector of Italian descent. He has remained the main protagonist in Nesser's crime books since then. Barbarotti is a more upbeat character than Van Veeteren and the books are firmly set in Sweden, although the town of Kymlinge is fictitious and named after an "abandoned tube station" in Stockholm.
In August 2011 he hinted on his own site that a future book (which became The Living and the Dead in Winsford) would take place in the "county of Somerset".Rapporter
Bibliography
Inspector Van Veeteren 1993 – Det grovmaskiga nätet; English translation: The Mind's Eye, 2008 1994 – Borkmanns punkt; English translation: Borkmann's Point, 2006 1995 – Återkomsten; English translation: The Return, 2007 1996 – Kvinna med födelsemärke; English translation: Woman with Birthmark, 2009 1997 – Kommissarien och tystnaden; English translation: The Inspector and Silence, 2010 1998 – Münsters fall: English translation: The Unlucky Lottery, 2011 (Münster's Case, USA, 2012) 1999 – Carambole; English translation: Hour of the Wolf, 2012 2000 – Ewa Morenos fall; English translation: The Weeping Girl, 2013 2001 – Svalan, katten, rosen, döden; English translation: The Strangler's Honeymoon, 2013 2003 – Fallet G; English translation: The G File, 2014
Inspector Barbarotti 2006 – Människa utan hund; English translation: The Darkest Day, 2017 2007 – En helt annan historia; English translation: The Root of Evil, 2018 2008 – Berättelse om herr Roos; English translation: The Secret Life of Mr. Roos, 2020 2010 – De ensamma'''; English translation: The Lonely Ones, 2022 2012 – Styckerskan från Lilla Burma'; English translation: The Axe Woman, 2022 2020 – Den sorgsne busschauffören från Alster2021 – Schack under vulkanen2023 – Det kom ett brev från München2024 – Ung mans färd mot natt2025 – Det finmaskiga nätetOther novels 1988 – Koreografen1996 – Barins triangel1998 – Kim Novak badade aldrig i Genesarets sjö; English translation by Saskia Vogel: A Summer with Kim Novak (2015), The Summer of Kim Novak (2020) 1999 – Flugan och evigheten2002 – Och Piccadilly Circus ligger inte i Kumla2002 – Kära Agnes!2004 – Skuggorna och regnet2005 – Från doktor Klimkes horisont2005 - Villrosen2009 – Maskarna på Carmine Street2011 – Himmel över London2014 – Levande och döda i Winsford; English translation: The Living and the Dead in Winsford (2015) 2016 – Eugen Kallmanns ögon2017 – Nortons filosofiska memoarer; English translation: Norton's Philosophical Memoirs (2018) 2018 – INTRIGO (a collection of novellas: Tom (2018); Rein (1996); Dear Agnes (2002); The Flower from Samaria (2005); All the Information in the Case (2005)) 2018 – De vänsterhäntas förening2019 – HalvmördaranFilmography and adaptationsKim Novak Never Swam in Genesaret's Lake (Kim Novak badade aldrig i Genesarets sjö): A 2005 film directed by Martin Asphaug and starring Anton Lundqvist and Helena af Sandeberg.Levande och döda i Winsford, released internationally as Unmoored: A 2023 film directed by Caroline Ingvarsson and starring Mirja Turestedt. A series of television and film dramatisations of the Van Veeteren novels starring Sven Wollter:Det grovmaskiga nätet (2000, TV)Återkomsten (2001, TV) Kvinna med födelsemärke (2001, TV)Münsters fall (2005) Carambole (2005) Borkmanns punkt (2005) Moreno och tystnaden (2006) Svalan, katten, rosen, döden (2006) Fallet G (2006) Awards 1994 – Best Swedish Crime Novel Award for Borkmanns punkt 1996 – Best Swedish Crime Novel Award for Kvinna med födelsemärke 2000 – Glass Key award for Carambole 2007 – Best Swedish Crime Novel Award for En helt annan historia'' 2016 – Honorary doctorate from Örebro University 2019 – H. M. The King's Medal for his work as an author
References
External links Official website Håkan Nesser at Pan Macmillan