Meet Morda My Angel:The Hunt For A Killer.

"You never get used to it. Sometimes, when you're sitting with them it's like staring into an abyss. Like there's no bottom. Only emptiness - and that lonelines they give off, it has its own smell" - Monica Olhed

"So close - and we can't find the fucker" - Per-Ake 'Pelle' Akesson

The Sweden of Mikael Marcimain's six part The Hunt For A Killer (BBC4/iPlayer) is very much not the Sweden of ABBA, IKEA, Roxette, and social equality. It is quite the opposite. It is a Sweden we don't see much of on television (or at least I haven't, I've not watched a lot of Scandi-noir - it's not that I don't like it, I've just never got round to it). It's a Sweden bedevilled by drugs and prostitution, a Sweden of failing social security standards, broken families, and alcoholic wasters passing the days before they die in dilapidated and remote cottages.

It's a pretty grim place to begin with but when the story of the murder of a ten year old girl is overlaid on top of that background it becomes even bleaker. That The Hunt For A Killer was gripping from start to finish, in these circumstances, was rather remarkable. That it was one of the best things I've watched on television for sometime, even more so.

Inspired by real life events between 1989 and 2004, the story begins in Horby (roughly halfway between Malmo and Kristianstad in the south of the country) with the rape and murder of ten year old Helen Nilsson (Minoo Martensson). A crime that, quite rightly, horrified the nation and one that continued, and continues, to do so. Not least because it took over fifteen years to solve.

Initially, the investigating officer put on the case is Arne Svensson (Christian Fex). Svensson's a company man through and through and a friend, to boot, of his superior Krister Berg (Rasmus Troedsson) - a man who seems more interested in workplace ergonomics and training days than actually solving crimes. 

Another one of Berg's detectives, Per-Ake 'Pelle' Akesson (Anders Beckman) thinks he can do better than Svensson, whom he dismisses as an 'amateur' on account of him never having handled a murder case before, but Berg sees Akesson as representative of the old guard and is, from the off, looking to move his desk closer to the door.

Not long after, another woman - twenty-six year old Jannica Ekblad (Sasha Becker), a sex worker - is found dead with injuries are similar to Helen's and, like Helen, her body is found covered in dog hair and wrapped up in the same black plastic. Then, in 1993 and again in 1995, yet more brutal murders of women in the area take place and detectives have to start considering if there is a serial killer on the loose or if the south of Sweden is simply riddled with misogynistic murderers.

There are similarities in the murders in each case (not least minute amounts of sperm found on the victim's bodies, not enough, back then, for a DNA analysis) but there are also differences. Soon, Pelle and his team are put on the case. There's Tonny (Lars Schilken), a Swedish Bomber Pat Roach with a Brian Johnson style flat cap whose thoroughness belies years in this heartbreaking line of work, Erik (Hakan Bengtsson) - Bryan Ferry on dress down Friday, and, new to the team, Monica Olhed (Lotten Roos) who becomes Pelle's equal partner and whose relevance, and skill, is revealed far too late into the drama for me to divulge without including unwanted spoilers.

Over the episodes, and years, a quite astonishing list of suspects is created. It includes Mikael Martinsson (Linus James Nilsson) - a textbrook grebo with a violent and abusive streak, Leif Storm (Olof Yassin) - who boasts that he only molests family members, Ulf Olsson, (Magnus Schmitz) a "troubled soul" with a drink problem whose former acquaintances describe as both "vulgar" and a "pervert", and even a man called Pig (Erik Noren) who is such an obvious caricature of a grotesque that is surely can't be him.

Or can it? Alongside Mikael, Leif, Ulf, and Pig there are all manner of child rapists, amateur pornographers, abusive drunkards, animal killers, and S&M dentists that could, in theory, fit the profile of the killer. Perhaps most disturbing of all is the case of Bengt Karlsson (Peter Larsdotter). A fascinating, and terrifyingly dark, individual who admits he has no idea what lurks at the back of his mind - or even what atrocities he may have committed in the past.

There is a man whose peculiarity is going with sex workers straight after they've finished with other men so he can enjoy the feel of another man's sperm inside them, there's another man in Jonkoping whose speciality is putting photos of children's faces on dolls and then ripping holes in their crotches, and there appears to be a thriving porcine pornography industry. There seems to be nearly as many sexually transgressive male predators in the south of Sweden as there are cigarettes smoked, or coffee drunk, throughout the series.

Sifting through this grim roster of suspects is task enough for Pelle and Monica but, at the same time, their work is hampered by bureaucracy, office politics, and people who wish to use the moral panic the murder of Helen has created to settle old scores.

The offices full of typewriters, floppy disks, audio cassettes, and rows of blue Lever Arch files but no computers give perfect period detail (as do suspects whose alibis involve being at home watching The X-Files and, later, The Sopranos) but there are also important, and still relevant, points made about the police being run like a business, with 'clients', the exploitation of low income workers, and, at a time of raised awareness about incel inspired, or led, violence and terrorism, The Hunt For A Killer presents a timely reminder that such concerns are not as new to us as the terminology we use to describe them.

Because it drills down on these societal concerns The Hunt For A Killer never feels, in itself, exploitative. Discoveries of victims' bodies are made more shocking, and yet more realistic, by the lack of music and the mundanity of the behaviour that leads up to each grim discovery. When incidental music is used (c/o Mattias Barjed) it is suitably chilling and there are twilit scenes in rural locations that capture the deep unease one can feel when in such environments at such times.

Often a non-specific unease but, of course, in this scenario the reasons for the unease are highly, life threateningly, specific. Volvos gliding quietly along wet roads at night and grisly torch lit searches for bodies bring home the horror of what has taken place but lengthy office based scenes are equally pertinent in our understanding of how stressful, and difficult, it is to solve these crimes.

Not least when you are so heavily immersed in a world of rape and murder and have been for so long that you've almost lost faith in humanity. When forensic lab results are returned from Birmingham they point to who the perpetrator is - or at least narrow the list down - and the final two episodes of six are devoted to Pelle, Monica, and the team catching him.

It is so deftly handled, while remaining utterly gripping, that it had me on the verge of tears and the occasional use of diegetic music in the soundtrack (Thin Lizzy's Dancing in the Moonlight, Lobo's I'd Love You To Want Me, and all sorts of other terrible shit that you can imagine murderers and paedophiles enjoying) always strikes the right note and never feels shoehorned in.

In looking at how a murder is investigated The Hunt For A Killer is surgical, precise, even-handed, and all encompassing but, better still, in looking how a society creates both murderers and creates the conditions that allow murderers to walk freely among us it is all those same things as well. For that reason, I found The Hunt For A Killer to be a low-key, but certainly not minor, masterpiece. Don't think I'll be booking a flight to Malmo any time soon.