Arne Dahl: Totenmesse

A robbery takes place at an internet bank in downtown Stockholm; the criminals get clean away, killing two innocent people in the process. There appears to be two suspects, but after close scrutiny Kerstin Holm (Malin Arvidsson) and her team ascertain that there is a third suspect, the foster-son of a former East German immigrant to Sweden, Becker (Olle Jernberg).

There follows a plot of byzantine complexity involving East German immigrants who had apparently shaken off their communist associations and participated in a democratic society. The only snag is that they didn't; rather they became involved in concealing a vital drawing whose discovery might still change the world. A CIA agent Steven Hicks (Bo Lyckman) is involved in trying to discover the whereabouts of that drawing, as are two Russian heavies Vladimir Kozlov (Samuel Vauramo) and Michail Botkin (Alexej Manvelov).

The plot involves a lot of information spouted by the characters as well as some rank implausibilities: why would senior police lawyer Aarto Söderstedt (Niklas Åkerfelt) chase after the bad guys on his own, knowing their record of killing people so far? And why would junior officer Ida Jankowitz (Natalie Minnevik) be involved in another shoot-out on her own, especially after her bloody experiences in A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM, the previous story in this series?

None of these questions are adequately explain in director Lisa Farzaneh's desire to reach the denouement and tie up all loose ends. We are left to enjoy the incidental pleasures of the episode, especially the continuing marital difficulties between Jorge Chavez (Alexander Salzberger) and Sara Svenhagen (Vera Vitali), and Kerstin's decision to pair off with Bengt Åkesson (Alexander Karim), much to her boss Paul's (Shanti Roney's) chagrin. As Kerstin's erstwhile lover, Paul believes that he can still be close to her whenever he wishes.

This second episode of the new series of "Arne Dahl" was more convincing than the lacklustre opener, I found. Kerstin coincidentally finds herself on the scene of a violent bank robbery by two Russian heavies but it turns out there's a third man upstairs with his own agenda, apparently looking for a long-hidden item again coincidentally stashed away in an adjoining wall to the bank at the time it was built next to, of all things, a pre-Reunification secret office of the East German republic.

The writing and direction this time, I felt, more skilfully interwove the detective work with the personal lives of the individual members of the team, particularly Kerstin, Paul, Chavez and Lilli. New girl Ida is still to find romance within the team, but there were hints that she might pick up Paul on the rebound from Kerstin or even get it together with her gentle giant minder Gunnar. Tall, bookish Anders, as before, stays somewhat aloof from the ABBA-type intrigue amongst the rest of them - it must be a a Swedish thing, I guess.

The plot was suitably opaque with characters mysteriously appearing and disappearing on the scene with the body count mounting up steadily before the not wholly satisfactory, because of the murky involvement of a CIA operative, conclusion is reached.

I'm still getting used to Chavez Mk II, Kerstin as the new if hardly dynamic team leader and new girl Ida who here continues her habit of putting herself in harm's way when the guns are firing. The ecological master-plan everyone was chasing had the distinct whiff of "McGoffin" about it but seemed a bit far-fetched as the main plot device.

All in all, this episode flowed better than the first of the series and for me, put the series back on track. I doubt it will reach the quality of its earlier run but this was definitely a step in the right direction.