This one is set primarily in Budapest, as Beck is sent there to find a Swede who checked into a hotel there and has since disappeared. Still a well-plotted story, but something was missing here, and in conversation with an astute patron I think I've figured it out. According to this patron, Stockholm is a character in these books, and when she's not around, the story loses interest. (His example was the Harry Bosch story set in Hong Kong, in his opinion not nearly as good as the novels where Harry is on his home turf. He also offered the Henning Mankell Wallander stories, in which Wallander occasionally goes abroad to solve his crimes. But I still liked those.)
What do my fellow readers say? Can you take a detective out of her favorite setting and still have a good story?
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