Thomas Lindblad

It was the side window nearest to the glove compartment that was broken. So, it might have locked a bit strange on the highway, but the sight for the driver was not impaired. No, they definitely did not have permission to drive the vicitim's car, but they knew the brother who was supposed to pick it up would be away that weekend. It is not stated explicity. but i it may readily be assumed they filled up the tank before parking the car in the same same place and putting the car keys and the parking access card back in the victim's mailbox. From Leiden to Groningen and back is a drive of 440 kilometers.

Thanks for your very helpful suggestion that I could incorporate at the last minute! The ploy could also have backfired for the author with the identity of the culprit becoming known too early.

Lars got up before Lennart and took ample time for morning coffee on the balcony. A warm and sunny Saturday lay ahead, well suited for the scheduled get-together of all residents in the courtyard garden. He and Lennart wanted to seize the opportunity to obtain information from potential suspects while making casual conversation. He looked back on the previous evening. Tim had visited Lennart and they had obviously had sex. When Lennart came to the bathroom to shower, Lars had even spotted

Good point! Our detectives did get the time of entrance of a car, but may not have realized they could also get the time of entrance by access card holders in person (a different walk-in entrance at street level, whereas the car entrance is on basement level). Good idea to try out the number of the missing phone at the forthcoming get-together in the courtyard garden.

Lars felt something in his armpits, a little too hard to be comfortable. He opened his eyes and saw Lennart sitting on the edge of the bed in his black boxer briefs. ‘How very ticklish you are!’ Lennart said with a merry smile. Lars sat up in bed. ‘Is this the correct way of waking up your boss?’ ‘I think so. Seriously Lars, in my sleep I remembered there was after all something to be seen on the surveillance footage from the night of the murder. A shadow at our entrance downsta

An unconventional potential murder weapon, I admit. Incidentally, the checkmate position cited in the text was from an actual victory by Argentinian wonderkid Faustino Oro, who qualified for the title of Grandmaster at the age of 12.

Lennart took it easy on the quiet Thursday morning. He browsed through messages in the app group of the residents of the condominium, especially those in English. ‘You’ve got to hear this,’ he said to Lars, who was reading today’s paper. ‘One bloke complains about his neighbour smoking on the balcony above him so that ashes fall on his wife’s hair. Another says the neighbour above him is clomping so hard on the floor that he can’t sleep.’ ‘That’s how things go here. I’m not surprised

Food for thought! Among the 3 fire watchers, Kees was the first one to arrive in the garden after having been to the fire; he obviously didn't see somebody alive in the garden. Danny spotted Kees when coming home from the fire and standing at his front door overlooking the garden. Rob upon his return from the fire also stood at his front door overlooking the garden and saw some 'men' (= 'the old man and somebody else') in the garden before going down there. As you may infer from the picture, two sides of the rectangular complex have galleries overlooking the courtyard, the west side (Danny) and the south side (Rob). This is a story of fiction, but the physical location is not a result of my imagination. It's also worth noting that none of them remembered having seen the other two at the fire. Admittedly, the condominium is very large (almost 400 apartments) and these three men did not know each other very well, as Lars correctly pointed out. Still, you do come across other residents in the elevator or garden all the time and might knew people by sight, if not by name.

They surely will ...

Lars woke up too early. He first turned towards the window, then towards the door in the master bedroom. It was not that they were at a dead-end, rather that they had no traces to follow. No murder weapon, no documentation about the victim, no suspect evidence. The door of Lennart’s room stood ajar, he noticed. The young sleepy-head ought to wake up and join him in devising their next move. Lennart was sleeping with open mouth on the sofa bed and opened his eyes as Lars sat down at his fo

Anybody could have locked the balcony door from the inside. A murderer, the police, the victim's sister. The politie did not think about fingerprints, assuming from the start it was an accident. The apartment had been vacated; therefore no heavy objects around anymore. The behaviour of young Tim may appear a riddle. Very shy in certain situations, yet unexpectedly enterprising under other conditions. It is tempting here to think in terms of typical coming-of-age behaviour. The standard age of Holden Caulfields in that genre is sixteen or seventeen. Tim is a few years older, perhaps a late bloomer.

Precisely, emphasizing how distant she was to her brother but knowing perfectly well how he was likely to behave. Sounds like a bit of a contradictory personality.

Encouraging to hear!

Lars was having coffee on the balcony on Tuesday morning when Lennart appeared in the open door, wearing only his black boxer briefs. ‘Okay with you if I have breakfast before I get dressed?’ ‘Sure, as long as you are not completely naked.’ Lars threw an appreciative glance at Lennart’s smooth hairless chest and belly. ‘I get it. Otherwise, you’ll be distracted in your deep thinking,’ Lennart smiled and sat down with his steaming cup of coffee. ‘So you had a nice talk wit

In this chapter, Lennart got a lot more attention than Lars by way of compensation for Lars's predominance in the first two chapters. From now on, my attention will be more or less evenly divided beteen the two protagonists. And don't worry, Tim will reappear soon enough.

Lennart entered Lars’s elegant apartment and took off his sneakers at the front door. He was slightly shorter than average and of delicate build. His hair was jet black and his eyes deep blue, a conspicuous combination that more than once had struck passers-by. He wore a green polo shirt and pale jeans sitting tight on his narrow hips. He shook hands with Irene, the seemingly fragile, old lady, who had just arrived from the Netherlands. She was emphatically looking forward to staying the c

Good point, but that is too late now. The corpse has already been buried. Overlooked by the police too early considering it an accident.

Nice to hear. I admit the story does reveal quite a bit about contemporaray Dutch society.

Thanks for your insightful reflections! The actual investigation will start soon.

Irene brought it up immediately at breakfast. ‘What a horrible course of events! Fire across the street, then a neighbour’s death in our garden. Do you think there’s a connection between the two?’ ‘How would you imagine that?’ Lars replied before consulting his mobile phone. ‘According to the local radio station, the fire at the square broke out at five to midnight. Fifteen minutes later Sander B. alerted us about it. Maybe he was already on the spot. Then he returned home with fire wounds

Lars gave himself a nod of approval as he was enjoying the wide view from the balcony over an agglomeration of startups opposite the parking lot and some high-rise apartment buildings further away. It was upon his insistence that his ageing mother had moved from a townhouse without elevator in downtown Leiden to a convenient first-class apartment in a newly built condominium at the edge of the city center. He had helped her move house and now came again to see how she was coping. She was doing w

L & L Investigations is a detective firm run by Lars Wrede, middle-aged and of Dutch-Swedish origin, together with his younger partner Lennart Torstensson. The firm is based in Stockholm but Lars in particular has strong links with the Netherlands from his youth. By coincidence they get a job to find out the truth behind a mysterious death in the Dutch university town Leiden. This brings them in contact with various aspects of Dutch society, including the experiences of gay young men.

Thank you! I know it is a bit unconventional to end a story in this way, but I had a feeling I had provided a picture of how rich and varied his life had been. It is not by coincidence that the accident in chapter 27 reminds us about the accident at the beginning of chapter 1. Nor is it a coincidence that the story begins when Göran was thirteen years old and ends when his son has reached the same age.

A familiar situation for those of the older generation, whether on an individual level or in something resembling a partnership. Depicted with a feeling for realistic detail and honest emotions. I'm getting to like Alex more by every chapter I read. Without perhaps realizing it himself, Neil requests more patience than Alex might be able or willing to provide.

Very nice chapter with a discrete but decisive turn of events in a way familiar to many of us, I think. I just joined this story but I enjoy it very much and look forward to catching up with the later chapters.