num_pages: 240
description: The Department of Sensitive Crimes is Scandinavian Blanc vastly different from Scandinavian Noir. There is nothing noir about the world of Ulf Varg Detective Inspector in the Sensitive Crimes Department of the Criminal Investigation Authority for the city of Malm Sweden. Ulf is concerned with odd but not too threatening crimes such as a stab wound to the back of the knee caused by an unknown hand young women who allow their desperation for a boyfriend to get the better of them and peculiar goings-on in a spa on Sweden's south coast.Of course Ulf is a Swedish detective and Swedish detectives by convention lead lives beset with problems of one sort or another. For a start there is his name: Ulf means wolf in modern Swedish and Varg derives from the Old Norse word for wolf. But his character is far from vulpine: Ulf is a sympathetic well-educated and likeable man with a knowledge of and interest in Scandinavian- and modern art. He has a dog named Marten the only dog in Sweden capable of lip-reading (but only in Swedish). Martin becomes depressed and needs treatment. Dogs in Sweden are apparently particularly prone to Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). But this is summerso there must be something else going on.Ulf has a number of colleagues into whose lives we gain insight. There is Anna married to an anaesthetist but very fond of Ulf; Erik whose sole interest is fishing; Carl whose father is a famous Lutheran theologian who has written a book on Danish philosopher Kierkegaard; then there is Blomquist from the uniformed branch who goes on and on about his health problems but seems to have extraordinary luck in investigations. There is also Ulf's psychotherapist Dr. Svensson whose observations on Ulf's lifeand many other topicsenlightens...or possibly confuses.The Department of Sensitive Crimes is the first full-length novel in the Detective Varg series.
language: English
title: The Department of Sensitive Crimes
publisher: Pantheon Books / Knopf Doubleday