By Anna Mundow
Detective Sgt. George Cross, the hero of a mystery series by Tim Sullivan, is an unconventional sleuth in the great British tradition that extends from Father Brown to the Thursday Murder Club. Brilliant but frequently misunderstood, George is dismissed by one potential suspect as "a bumbling, disorganized eccentric." That's a "big mistake," as the narrator points out and as George's partner, Detective Sgt. Josie Ottey, knows only too well. But even Josie shakes her head whenever she sees George dressed up in fluorescent cycling gear for his bicycle ride home.
Meticulous in his habits and wedded to his routines, George loves the sterile formality of the police interview room, where, unmoved by the emotional outbursts of others, he patiently sifts fact from fabrication. "I have no feelings either way," he tells one irate interviewee. "I care about the truth." Thanks to the convincing portrait that Mr. Sullivan draws of this unassuming investigator, we know this to be a fact and not a boast.
In " The Dentist" (Atlantic Crime, 384 pages, $27), first published in the U.K. in 2020, the truth seems obvious. When the body of a homeless man is found on the outskirts of town, his death appears to be accidental, the result of a drunken tussle, officers at the scene speculate. But George disagrees. "It's murder," he tells his boss. "This man had a life and it's more than likely that whatever that life was has, in some way led to this unfortunate conclusion."
George is right. The subsequent search for the victim's identity sets the pace and tone for an investigation that leads George and Josie to a homicide from the distant past and a long-buried family tragedy.
This template is recognizable from any number of police procedurals. But Mr. Sullivan freshens the familiar with shrewd diversions and, above all, the phenomenon of a relentlessly logical investigator confronting a mystery rooted in love and loyalty. Not that George would put it that way. He finds families "endlessly fascinating" but observes them dispassionately, noting emotional responses that hint at deeper secrets. Secrets that, in this case, hold the key to murders that are 15 years apart but linked by a twist of fate on a country road.
Sophocles himself might have approved the tragic symmetry. The revelations in "The Dentist" occur not in the heavens, however, but in the interview room where Mr. Sullivan's intricate plot takes shape. Along the way, we are treated to the author's ironic wit and the delightful spectacle of Josie schooling her partner in the social graces he endearingly lacks.
The setting for Christoffer Carlsson's "The Living and the Dead" (Hogarth, 432 pages, $29) is Skavböke, an isolated and gloomy Swedish village six hours from Stockholm. As one character puts it, "out here, you get divorced so you don't kill each other."
The novel opens with the discovery of a body. Mikael Söderström was a teenager walking home from a party when his life ended in December 1999. The investigating police officer, Siri Bengtsson, is new to the force and a shrewd interpreter of the silences and evasions she encounters when questioning Skavböke's wary inhabitants. Following her first conversation with another teenager, she concludes her notes with one word: "lying." But Sander Eriksson is a nice young man. He and his best friend, Killian Persson, both liked Mikael. When Siri questions Killian, she jots down another observation: "hiding something."
Mr. Carlsson introduces us to this insular, secretive world with the unhurried ease of a seasoned guide. His style is laconic and graceful. (The translation from the Swedish is by Rachel Willson-Broyles.) His descriptions convey with equal force the stillness of the forest, the mute hostility of a marriage, the ardent impulses of youth. His serpentine plot flows to a natural yet shocking conclusion.
Tension infuses each page as Siri and her boss, Gerd, return to the various accounts of that fateful party night. Two dramatic events further complicate the inquiry: Another body is found, this time in a car destroyed by fire, and a dynamite explosion obliterates houses and swallows the land. Some wonder if there is a curse on the village.
As Mr. Carlsson thickens the atmosphere, he keeps our attention fixed on crimes that are distant in time yet critically linked. His seamless design emerges only gradually and circuitously. From its opening, in 1999, the narrative briefly advances to 2002 and Siri's glimpse of a young man hurrying away from a homeless encampment. We then return to Mikael's murder and revelations of cruelties and deceptions binding two families together. We lose sight of Siri when she abruptly leaves the police force, but years later a different investigator, Vidar Jörgensson, persuades her to assist him and together they exhume the truth behind two murders and several disfigured lives. Meanwhile the unfathomable mystery of mortality itself endures. "Alive," Siri speculates of one vanished boy. "Such a beautiful word, maybe the most beautiful of all. If you ignored what it could entail."
--Ms. Mundow reviews frequently for the Journal.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
November 28, 2025 10:30 ET (15:30 GMT)
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