About as rote as a detective novel gets. I was introduced to this series with book #7 (Hour of the Wolf), and was sufficiently intrigued to go back and start from the beginning (I enjoy a lot of Scandinavian detective series, and this one had good reviews). They have all been fairly bland, but this was the worst of the bunch, as it was pretty much the same formula as the previous one. Serial killer with ax to grind starts his/her spree. Police figure out there's a pattern 2-3 victims in. Very little in the way of actual detective work is done, which is a good thing, because these officers hold the public and most of their comrades in contempt and are reluctant to do any actual police work. They rely firstly on Van Veeteren's flashes of intuition out of the blue to come up with leads and secondarily, on civilians to phone/walk in tips to point them in the right direction. They get frustrated after about a week that "the case is taking too long."

Spoiler

Luckily for them, the culprit ultimately kills all her intended victims, plus herself, and the cops can get back to their grueling schedules of sex and junk food.

This book was particularly boring since the motive of the killer was obvious from the first page--were we supposed to be waiting with bated breath for the genius Van Veeteren to figure it out? The only saving grace of the series are the occasional flashes of sardonic humor between the characters, and the fact that they are short and easy listens on audiobooks.