I have reviewed five of Nesser's Van Veeteren novels on this blog (another five to go). The Axe Woman is one of his other string, the Barbarotti series. I initially wondered if this was going to be set in an imaginary Italy, as Van Veeteren is set in a fictional Holland, but no, it's set in Sweden - Gunnar Barbarotti is a middleaged Swedish cop with an absent Italian father. Obviously it's a fictional Swedish town, though.
Anyway, Barbarotti wakes up one morning to find his wife dead beside him, from a brain aneurysm. They knew about the problem and learned to live with it, but nothing prepares Barbarotti for the overwhelming, shattering grief. After a few weeks' compassionate leave, he is due to return to work. His boss, Asunander, wonders if he's fit to take on major casework. Probably not, so he gives Barbarotti a cold case to pursue. A missing man called Arnold Morinder. Actually it's not that much of a mystery. Morinder was living with a woman called Ellen Bjarnebo when he disappeared - and Ellen is the Axe Woman of Little Burma who did ten years for murdering her abusive husband and chopping the body into little pieces. Asunander would just like the case cleared up before he retires - or so he says.
Of course nothing is what it seems to be - and the case proves suitably therapeutic. It's extremely well-written, the characters highly satisfactory and the plotting expertly handled. It sends with Barbarotti deciding to go off in search of his father, which is a novel I would look forward to reading - if only The Axe Woman wasn't described as the fifth and final Inspector Barbarotti mystery.
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