Absorbing mystery

The Gallows Bird
by Camilla Lackberg, HarperCollins, $39
Swedish writer Camilla Lackberg is yet another of Scandinavia's top crime novelists and her country's best-selling woman writer.
The plot here is quite ingenious. A woman who is known to never touch alcohol is found dead in a car which has gone off the road and crashed. She reeks of liquor and has absorbed a good deal of it. Everyone assumes accidental death, but Detective Patrick Hedstrom is suspicious. He investigates and finds similar deaths across the country.
This is an absorbing, but not completely riveting, novel. There are too many diversions into areas which do not touch the plot. Nonetheless, it's worth the read.