First published 2002
Sybilla walks through the elegant lobby of Stockholm's Grand Hotel, scanning for her next mark. She abandoned her privileged upbringing years ago, choosing instead to sleep rough on the city's streets. She survives by finding shelter, food, and the occasional bath wherever she can. The Grand Hotel represents her favorite indulgence. She targets lonely businessmen visiting the city, charming them into providing dinner and a room for the night. This time, she selects the wrong target. The businessman turns up dead the next morning. Police identify Sybilla as their primary suspect. For years, she has relied on her anonymity as protection. The invisibility that comes with homelessness has become her refuge. Now that safety net has vanished. The investigation threatens to expose everything she has worked to leave behind. Sybilla faces a choice that could either destroy her carefully constructed new life or finally allow her to reclaim her old one.
Genres: suspense, mystery, crime, thriller
Vibes: atmospheric, dark, suspenseful
Tropes: reinvention, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Stockholm, Grand Hotel
Period: contemporary
255 pages · Paperback · De Geus