The Treacherous Net by Helene Tursten

First published in Swedish in 2007; published in translation by Soho Crime on December 15, 2015

The Treacherous Net combines two themes that have become standard in police procedurals. One involves a hunt for a sexual predator who murders his victims. The other spotlights a team of “cold case” detectives. First published in Sweden, where the story is set, The Treacherous Net is the eighth Detective Inspector Irene Huss novel to be translated from Swedish into English.

The predator is pursued by DI Irene Huss and other members of the understaffed Violent Crimes Unit. Two dead girls and the discovery of a body that was sealed up in a chimney have the detectives feeling overworked. When it becomes apparent that the man in the chimney had been dead for 40 years, his case is shuffled off to the cold case unit, whose members are nearing retirement.

One of the dead girls seems to have fallen into the “treacherous net” by agreeing to meet someone who groomed her online. The police quickly find physical evidence that connects the two dead teenagers, leading them to wonder whether they are dealing with an internet predator. That investigation launches a straightforward police procedural.

Unfortunately, the investigation is too straightforward to be interesting. It lacks any sense of mystery. There are no plot twists or surprises. The police move forward in a predictable way with predictable results. I give Helene Tursten credit for telling a believable story. It just isn’t a compelling story.

The other plot is a bit better. The man in the chimney has been dead for 40 years. The man's father, a Swedish security agent, was assassinated before his birth. Was the father killed by Russian spies? Were the father-and-son murders connected? The answer comes in an information dump at the end of the novel. Again, the story holds no real surprises, but it avoids being dull.

Characters, like the plot, lack interest. Irene drinks a lot of coffee and experiences family woes, but not much in the way of personality shows through in this novel. The woman in charge of the detectives, Efva Thylqvist, seems to like her male detectives but has little regard for Irene. That’s the closest the novel comes to having any spark. The other detectives spend their time complaining about being overworked before they embark on their four-week summer vacations -- and then they complain about how they make so little progress in their investigations during the summer. It’s a wonder any crime gets solved in Sweden.

The Treacherous Net is capably written but, with a couple of brief exceptions, it lacks energy. The absence of dramatic tension or surprising plot twists makes the story, at best, a moderately pleasant read, but not an exciting one.

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