Mind's Eye (21 page)
Authors: Hakan Nesser
45
The woman grabbed him by the arm.
What now, for Christ’s sake? Ingrun thought. He had just sat down and lit a cigarette. Why could they never leave him in peace?
“What do you want?” he said, trying to shake his arm free. Her nails were digging into him.
“Luke, chapter 15, verse 11!” she hissed.
“Eh?”
“Luke, 15:11! I was going to read the Bible, and found that somebody’s been scribbling in it!”
He saw that she was holding a Bible in her other hand. Brandishing it, with a bony index finger stuck inside it.
“Let me see!”
She let go of his arm. Opened the Bible and handed it to him. Right across one of the pages was written in large, bold letters:
Carl Ferger.
“God will never forgive that!” she cried in anguish, wringing her hands.
Ingrun hesitated for a moment. Then he tore out the page and threw it into the waste bin.
“Read something else!” he said, closing the Bible.
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Håkan Nesser was awarded the 1993 Swedish Crime Writers’ Academy Prize for new authors for his novel
The Wide-Meshed Net
(published in the United States as
Mind’s Eye
); he received the best novel award in 1994 for
Borkmann’s Point
and in 1996 for
Woman with Birthmark.
In 1999 he was awarded the Crime Writers of Scandinavia’s Glass Key Award for the best crime novel of the year for
Carambole.
Nesser lives in Sweden and New York City.
A NOTE ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR
Laurie Thompson taught Swedish at the University of Wales and was the editor of
Swedish Book Review
from its launch in 1983 until 2002. He has been a full-time literary translator for several years and has translated more than forty books from Swedish. He was born in York, England, but now lives in rural West Wales with several cats and a Swedish wife.
A NOTE ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR
Laurie Thompson taught Swedish at the University of Wales and was the editor of
Swedish Book Review
from its launch in 1983 until 2002. He has been a full-time literary translator for several years and has translated more than forty books from Swedish. He was born in York, England, but now lives in rural West Wales with several cats and a Swedish wife.
ALSO BY HÅKAN NESSER
Borkmann’s Point
The Return
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Translation copyright © 2008 by Laurie Thompson
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Pantheon Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. Originally published in Sweden as
Det grovmaskiga nätet
by Albert Bonniers Förlag AB, Stockholm, in 1993. Copyright © 1993 by Håkan Nesser.
Pantheon Books and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Nesser, Håkan, [date]
[Grovmaskiga nätet. English]
Mind’s eye: an Inspector Van Veeteren mystery / Håkan Nesser; translated from the Swedish by Laurie Thompson.
p. cm.
I. Thompson, Laurie, 1938–II. Title.
PT9876.24.E76G7613 2008
839.73'74—dc22
2007039214
eISBN: 978-0-307-37758-6
v3.0