First published 2019
Detective Inspector Ulf Varg works in Malmö's Department of Sensitive Crimes, where he handles the city's strangest cases. Someone has stabbed a victim behind the knee with no apparent motive. Desperate young women make questionable choices in their search for boyfriends. Strange incidents unfold at a spa along Sweden's southern coast. Ulf navigates these puzzling matters while managing his own complications. His dog Marten can read lips but only in Swedish, and the animal has fallen into an unusual summer depression. His colleague Anna harbors feelings for him despite her marriage to an anesthetist. Erik obsesses over fishing while Carl discusses his theologian father's work on Kierkegaard. Blomquist complains endlessly about his health yet stumbles into investigative breakthroughs. Dr. Svensson offers therapeutic insights that clarify or confuse in equal measure. This world operates as Scandinavian Blanc, a gentle counterpoint to the darkness of Nordic noir, where crimes remain odd rather than threatening and human nature reveals itself through quiet absurdities.
Genres: mystery, crime, contemporary, detective
Vibes: gentle, intimate, quirky, thought-provoking
Tropes: amateur-sleuth, found-family, quirky-characters
Setting: Malmö, Sweden
Period: contemporary
240 pages · Hardcover · Pantheon Books / Knopf Doubleday