Håkan Nesser (born 21 February 1950) is a Swedish author and teacher who mainly writes

crime fiction Crime fiction, detective story, murder mystery, crime novel, mystery novel, and police novel are terms used to describe narratives or fiction that centre on criminal acts and especially on the investigation, either by an amateur or a professiona ...

. He has won

Best Swedish Crime Novel Award The Best Swedish Crime Novel Award (''Bästa svenska kriminalroman'') is a literary prize awarded annually since 1982 by the Swedish Crime Writers' Academy. The winners of the award are listed below: Winners References {{Reflist External linksS ...

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 Uppsala ( ; ; archaically spelled ''Upsala'') is the capital of Uppsala County and the List of urban areas in Sweden by population, fourth-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmö. It had 177,074 inhabitants in 2019. Loc ...

until 1998 when he became a full-time author. In August 2006, Håkan Nesser and his wife Elke (a psychiatrist) moved to

Greenwich Village Greenwich Village, or simply the Village, is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street (Manhattan), 14th Street to the north, Broadway (Manhattan), Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the s ...

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 Stockholm on the island

Furillen Furillen (older spelling Furilden) is an island in Rute on the northeast coast of Gotland, Sweden. For most of the 20th century, there was a limestone industry on the island until it was closed to the public by the Swedish military in the 1970s� ...

in the

Baltic Sea The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by the countries of Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden, and the North European Plain, North and Central European Plain regions. It is the ...

Criminal conviction

On June 14, 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 Tax evasion or tax fraud is an illegal attempt to defeat the imposition of taxes by individuals, corporations, trusts, and others. Tax evasion often entails the deliberate misrepresentation of the taxpayer's affairs to the tax authorities to red ...

. In February 2025, the

Supreme Court of Sweden The Supreme Court of Sweden (, HD) is the supreme court and the third and final instance in all civil and criminal cases in the Kingdom of Sweden. Before a case can be decided by the Supreme Court, leave to appeal must be obtained, and wit ...

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 The Paradise Papers are a set of over 13.4 million confidential electronic documents relating to offshore investments that were leaked to the German reporters Frederik Obermaier and Bastian Obermayer, from the newspaper'' Süddeutsche Z ...

Characters and themes

A recurring

main character A protagonist () is the main character of a story. The protagonist makes key decisions that affect the plot, primarily influencing the story and propelling it forward, and is often the character who faces the most significant obstacles. If a ...

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 Somerset ( , ), Archaism, archaically Somersetshire ( , , ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by the Bristol Channel, Gloucestershire, and Bristol to the north, Wiltshire to the east ...

".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 Alster'' *2021 – ''Schack under vulkanen''

Other novels

*1988 – ''Koreografen'' *1996 – ''Barins triangel'' *1998 – ''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 evigheten'' *2002 – ''Och Piccadilly Circus ligger inte i Kumla'' *2002 – ''Kära Agnes!'' *2004 – ''Skuggorna och regnet'' *2005 – ''Från doktor Klimkes horisont'' *2009 – ''Maskarna på Carmine Street'' *2011 – ''Himmel över London'' *2014 – ''Levande och döda i Winsford''; English translation: ''The Living and the Dead in Winsford ''(2015) *2016 – ''Eugen Kallmanns ögon'' *2017 – ''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 förening'' *2019 – ''Halvmördaran''

Filmography

*''Kim Novak Never Swam in Genesaret's Lake'' (Kim Novak badade aldrig i Genesarets sjö) 2005 *Van Veeteren series **''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 –

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 Pan Books is a British publishing imprint that first became active in the 1940s and is now part of the British-based Macmillan Publishers, owned by the Georg von Holtzbrinck Publishing Group of Germany. History Pan Books began as an indepe ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nesser, Hakan 1950 births Living people People from Kumla Municipality Writers from Örebro County Swedish-language writers Swedish crime fiction writers Uppsala University alumni Nordic detective fiction writers Nordic Noir writers