The Talented Mr. Varg

March 15, 2020
A second course of Nordic blanc for Ulf Varg and his colleagues in Malm�'s Department of Sensitive Crimes. Now that uniformed officer Blomquist has been seconded to the DSC, Varg's regulars--Anna Bengsdotter, whom Ulf secretly pines for; Carl Holgersson; and Erik, the clerk who fishes whenever he's not maintaining the files--all appreciate his uncanny talent for intuiting the answers to the riddles that cross their desks. This time, Ulf will have his help in shadowing Anna's husband, anesthetist Jo Asplund, whom she suspects of cheating on her (if only he were, thinks Ulf mournfully). It's Ulf's neighbor and dogsitter, Agnes H�gfors, who has the honor of figuring out who's blackmailing Nils Persson-Cederstr�m, the Swedish Hemingway, whose partner Ulf has met in group therapy. Ulf thinks he's the one who'll have to decide what to do about a stolen Saab grille he's been presented with by grateful Roma thief Viligot Danior, who thinks he owes Ulf for giving evidence against the Lutheran minister who punched Danior in the nose because he caught Danior's son stealing his tires. But here again he's given a miraculous bit of assistance that lets him off the hook. Fans of Ulf's debut in The Department of Sensitive Crimes (2019) or the author's other gently reflective franchises won't be surprised or disappointed to learn that most of the crimes here aren't really crimes, and Ulf's crime-solving talents are highly questionable. McCall Smith's great gift is making you shelve your genre-honed expectations and accept his people and stories as they are.

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March 23, 2020
Smith’s disappointing sequel to 2019’s The Department of Sensitive Crimes has its memorable and moving moments, but not enough of them. Det. Ulf Varg and the other members of Sweden’s Department of Sensitive Crimes handle cases with political or social angles, not run-of-the-mill cases. Varg and his colleagues, despite their special status, must work in a bureaucracy where supplies can only be ordered by an item number they aren’t given access to, leading them to request something at random so they can start to link items with their identifying numbers. Other mild satire includes Varg’s politician brother belonging to the Moderate Extremists Party. One plotline focuses on the possible blackmail of a prominent author known as Sweden’s Hemingway; another involves an allegation of fraud in international dog sales. The heart of the book is Varg, who just may be too sensitive to handle sensitive crimes. At one point, he has to balance self-interest and ethics when a colleague he has a crush on asks him to look into whether her husband is having an affair. This entry falls short of the high standard set by Smith’s No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency books. Agent: Robin Straus, Robin Straus Agency.