The Princess of Burundi (Ann Lindell Series #1) Book

I worked at a used bookstore when I first moved to town in 2003. I felt I was a fairly well-read person, and had an idea or two about some things. So I was surprised when one evening someone called and asked if we had any books on a specific topic.

"Chiclets!?" I remember asking. "Like... the gum...?"

The man on the other end of the line made a really frustrated noise, because obviously I didn't understand something pretty uncommon like this.

"Cichlids. C-I-C-H-L-I-D-S. The FISH?"

I still had no idea what he was talking about, but walked the cordless phone to the pets and animal section of the store and took a look through the one shelf we had. Nothing about whatever these cichlids were. I let him know we didn't have any fish books at the moment, but to be sure to try back since we had new things every day. He scoffed and hung up.

Fish people are the worst.

I had almost forgotten about that entire experience until I started reading this book. I didn't know until like halfway through the book that "Princess of Burundi" refer to a species of cichlid, Neolamprologus brichardi. This is what they look like. You're welcome.

I share this story with you not because I want you to be aware of how dumb I was in 2003, but because, obviously, these cichlids are the title of the book. And you should know going into it that "Princess of Burundi" are fish. It's only fair.

I'm still sort of new at this whole Scandinavian crime/thriller/police procedural thing. I seem to pick them up often and then they sit on my bookshelves for a while. Of course I read the Millennium trilogy because everyone was raving about them, but you know what? I only found them to be so-so. At least not as wonderful as it seems everyone else thought they were. I haven't read Henning Mankell yet, though I have a few of his books. Then there's that Jo Nesbø guy from Norway who I've been told I should read as well.

But each time I read one of these books, I always feel left down by the end.

This book was no exception. It started out well enough, and I was properly engrossed most of the way through. It starts with a man's body, as all good crime stories should, and the story branches out from there: His family and the family dynamic, his past, his brother, an old friend, a couple police types, a sociopath, etc. etc. We learn of each character through the various chapters, but I don't feel we really get to know any of them. This may be because the book is the first of Eriksson's books to be translated to English, but it is like the fourth book in whatever series. I don't know if it's necessary to read the other books before this one (or if I will even go back to check them out), but I feel maybe I missed something about some of the characters just because I had no previous experience with any of them.

Unfortunately Eriksson relies on some pretty annoying crime novel motifs, like introducing a character at the end of the book, so you think one or two things throughout the whole book and then BA-BAM, we're less than 100 pages from the end so let's go ahead and introduce you to someone new.

That doesn't work for me. It was about that time the story fell apart for me and I pretty much stopped caring.

I've seen some comments about the translation. I didn't have an issue with that, per se. Since I don't read or speak Swedish, I can't compare the two texts, but I thought this read just as well as most crime/thriller/police procedurals read. Any issues I had with the story (like the portrayal of women as being wives/mothers - even one of the cops involved who is on maternity leave but then carts her son around with her while she tries to crack this case she's not even assigned to, sigh) were related to the story itself, and I cannot blame the translator for that.

However, it could have used some editing. I found quite a few typos throughout the text and that just makes me angry because it's so avoidable.

In any case, it was fine for a deliciously overcast and drizzly January day. An easy read, not taxing at all, and fun to just sit and let the story unfold. Don't think about it too much.

I wonder whatever happened to that sassy guy and his cichlids from 2003. He's probably really insufferable still today.