And Truls had given an honest answer: he wanted to sit a bit higher up the food chain, but without having to wear himself out making an effort. Any other police chief would have thrown Truls out on his ear, but this one couldn’t. They had too much dirt on each other.
-- Narrator (Chapter 2)

Importance: Even though Truls did not deserve the promotion that Mikael gave him, Mikael was afraid not to do as Truls asked because Truls could easily ruin his reputation.

He needed to prioritise this single murder as if it were an entire crime wave, simply because Elise Hermansen was a wealthy, well-educated, ethnically Norwegian woman in her thirties, and because the murder weapon wasn’t a steel bar, a knife or a pistol, but a set of teeth made out of iron.
-- Narrator (Chapter 5)

Importance: As a result of the circumstances of Elise’s murder, Mikael knew he needed to treat...