by Lars Kepler
First published 2013
Detective Inspector Joona Linna faces two deaths that defy explanation. Police pull a young woman's body from a pleasure boat drifting in the Stockholm archipelago. Water fills her lungs, yet her clothes remain dry and the boat stays afloat. The next day, a man hangs dead from a lamp hook in his Stockholm apartment. The scene suggests suicide, but the ceiling towers high above and no furniture sits anywhere nearby. Nothing to climb. Linna connects the cases as the mysteries spiral into something far more dangerous. The crimes themselves shock, but the true terror lies deeper. The characters reveal how little people understand their own desires and motivations. Linna must navigate not just the puzzle of how these deaths occurred, but the twisted psychology driving them.
Genres: mystery, crime, detective, psychological-thriller
Vibes: dark, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: cat-and-mouse, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Stockholm, Stockholm Archipelago
Period: 21st Century
585 pages · Paperback · Blue Door
Content warnings: murder, violence