First published 2012
Inspector Evert Grens faces two disturbing cases that will drag him into Stockholm's hidden depths. Forty-three frightened Romanian children have been abandoned in the city center. Meanwhile, a woman's stabbed body lies in hospital tunnels, her face destroyed by rats. Grens carries guilt from a past accident and feels overwhelmed by his caseload, but he joins young officer Mariana Hermansson and detective Sven Sundkvist to investigate. The children's plight connects to an international conspiracy involving intelligence agencies that reaches beyond Sweden's borders. The murder investigation leads into Stockholm's vast underground network of concrete tunnels. Hundreds of kilometers of passages run beneath the streets, home to the homeless and outcasts who live by their own rules. To catch the killer, Grens and Sundkvist must descend into this subterranean world. At the same time, a teenage girl appears at St. Clara's church and sits motionless for hours. No one can reach her or make her speak. Something connects her to the murdered woman in the tunnels.
Genres: mystery, crime, thriller, detective
Vibes: dark, emotional, fast-paced, suspenseful
Tropes: detective-story, investigation, serial-killer
Setting: Romania, Stockholm, Sweden
Period: contemporary
408 pages · Paperback · Albatros
Content warnings: child-abuse, trafficking, violence