Books in the Backstroem series in order

In the middle of an unusually hot Swedish summer, a young woman studying at the Vaxjo Police Academy is brutally murdered. Police Inspector Evert Backstrom is unwillingly drafted in from Stockholm to head up the investigation.

In this second installment of Persson's trilogy of police procedurals featuring the "small, fat and primitive" Evert Backstroem, the grand master's most appallingly repulsive (and funniest) character is finally given his fifteen minutes of fame by way of his patented combination of laziness, luck, and an unbelievable sense of timing.

DS Evert Backstroem is in charge of a rare kind of case. Finding a suspect for the murder of Thomas Eriksson - gangster lawyer and renowned defender of the guilty - isn't difficult, but narrowing down the long list of people who wanted him dead is almost impossible.