Evert Bäckström is the cleverest cop in the Stockholm police force, having cleared up 99 percent of the murder cases he’s ever investigated during his long career. That record has won the grizzled, bedraggled detective a regular slot as a commentator on a popular television crime-chat show, where he runs circles around his opposite number, a defense attorney who’s now almost as famous as Bäckström himself. It makes Bäckström untouchable, even by his skeptical bosses. The supporting evidence:
- He’s seen having a glass of whiskey at 10 a.m., without a hint of embarrassment.
- He’s been caught on a security camera stealing paintings from a crime scene soon after the forensics team vacated the premises and removed the dead body.
- He casually steals a bottle of an especially good whiskey from another crime scene, where fellow policemen have found him holding a gun while standing over a dead body, a person with whom he’s had a long-running rivalry.
- Unobserved – except by us, the audience – he confiscates cash from a crime and stashes it in a secret compartment in his bookcase.
- Everyone knows these things and can’t seem to make anything stick.
Welcome to world of the lovable, hate-able Bäckström, which first aired on Swedish television in 2020. It’s based on the novels of Leif G. W. Persson. …
Read the rest of The backflips of ‘Bäckström’ – Don Nordberg (is/on) writing on Substack.
