Van Veeteren is a fictional retired Detective Chief Inspector and the main character in a series of ten novels by

Håkan Nesser Håkan Nesser (born 21 February 1950) is a Swedish author and teacher who has written a number of successful novels, mostly but not only crime fiction. He has won Best Swedish Crime Novel Award three times, and his novel ''Carambole'' won the pre ...

, of which nine have been filmed. In the films, Van Veeteren is portrayed by

Sven Wollter Sven Justus Fredrik Wollter (11 January 1934 – 10 November 2020) was a Swedish actor, writer, and political activist. Wollter is one of the most renowned Swedish actors, he was awarded Best Swedish actor twice. In his native country, he becam ...

Setting

The novels take place in a fictional town called Maardam, situated somewhere in a European country resembling the Netherlands, Sweden, Germany and Poland. Maardam has around 300 000 inhabitants (according to the first novel, '' The Mind's Eye'').

Character profile

The main character, Van Veeteren, is in his sixties. In the first five novels he is still a Detective Chief Inspector; in the last five novels he is retired, but sometimes he leaves his antiquarian book store to help out with investigations. In his youth, he was a student at the university of Maardam. Van Veeteren is a bit grumpy and cynical, enjoys dark beer and chess. He has two children, Erich (black sheep of the family with criminal history) and Jess (who moved to France, got married and has two children). Van Veeteren is divorced, but meets a new woman, Ulrike Fremdli, during the series. Van Veeteren is very intuitive when it comes to reading people. He has only one unsolved case in his résumé, ''The Case G''.

References

{{reflist Characters in crime novel series Fictional male detectives Fictional police detectives Films set in Europe Literary characters introduced in 1993 Book series introduced in 1993