This was Kristina Ohlsson's The Disappeared. It's one of a series of police procedurals set in Stockholm and written by a political scientist who held various positions in the Swedish Civil Service concerned with foreign affairs.
I realised very quickly once I had started this that I had in fact read it before but as I couldn't remember much about it I carried on and read it again.
It was OK. The plot was plausible and held together reasonably well. The police unit is sparsely populated which doesn't ring quite true and the female protagonist seems out of place as she's not a police officer but possibly some sort of profiler. It's not clear. She also has the dullest lover in detective fiction.
The prose is very flat and the author carries off the incredibly difficult task of making both Stockholm and Uppsala seem dull and lifeless. I would generally put such shortcomings down to the translation, but this was translated by Marlaine Delargy, who I know from translations of other authors, is excellent so the monotone narrative and overall lack of atmosphere must be down to Ohlsson.
This is now destined for the recycling bin; I never really throw books away but this one is a bit scrumpled (which is how I received it) and that, together with its overall dullness means the bin, rather than the charity shop, is calling.
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