Snowdrift

September 15, 2020
More than 14 years after DI Embla Nystr�m's best friend disappeared, she may have turned up again. Or maybe not. The first phone call that rocks Embla's world is from Louise Lindqvist, whom she hasn't seen since Louise went missing from the Gothenburg nightclub La Dolce Vita when they were both students. The second, soon after the first is cut off, is from her Uncle Nisse's cousin Harald F�ldt, whose latest guest has been shot to death in bed--twice, so there's no question of suicide. Responding to Harald's pleas even though his guesthouse is outside her jurisdiction, Embla is both shocked and relieved to recognize the dead man as crime lord Milo Stavic, Lollo's abductor all those years ago, who threatened to kill Embla if she ever breathed a word about seeing him. Finally Embla can sleep better, as soon as she helps Inspector Olle Tillman, whom she meets at the murder scene, solve the mystery of which of Milo's hundreds of gangster enemies could have killed him. The case is both complicated and clarified by the murder of Milo's brother and partner, Luca Stavic, in La Dolce Vita's parking garage and the news that a third brother, Kador, vanished from his Croatian home two weeks ago. Before Embla can come to terms with the Stavic brothers' portfolio in narcotics, prostitution, and human trafficking, there's the matter of high school athlete Robin Pettersson's fatal stabbing outside another club. The leading suspects this time aren't professional criminals but other students whose passions run equally deep. Will Embla ever surmount the obstacles that stand between her and a possible reunion with her old friend? "This is such a complicated case," notes the heroine. Amen. In fact, make that "cases."

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Starred review from October 12, 2020
Tursten’s spellbinding third crime novel featuring Det. Insp. Embla Nyström picks up eight days after the end of 2019’s Winter Grave, which closed with Embla receiving a late-night phone call from her childhood best friend, Lollo, who disappeared 14 years earlier. Suspected abductors were Gothenburg gangsters, the Stavic brothers—Milo, Luca, and Kador. When a cousin of Embla’s calls for help to solve a murder in one of his rented guesthouses, she’s shocked to find the victim is Milo. A second jolt comes when she learns that Luca was killed nearby on the same night. Challenged to solve the murders, Embla anxiously seeks the whereabouts of Kador, who has vanished in Croatia. The stabbing of a teenager at a nightclub thickens the plot. Aided by various police officials, including Irene Huss, Tursten’s other series lead, Embla seeks to uncover the truth about what happened to Lollo. The action includes a spectacular chase sequence, a bombshell twist that turns the cases around, and an explosive firestorm. This stunning page-turner is unarguably the best in the series. Agent: Anneli Høier, Leonhardt & Høier Literary (Sweden).

December 1, 2020
Two murders overwhelm the rural force in Herremark, Sweden, and Gothenburg Violent Crimes Unit detective Embla Nystr�m agrees to secure the death scene at her distant cousins' guesthouse. Professional courtesy quickly becomes personal, though: the victim is Milo Stavic, the ganglord who'd been headlining her nightmares since she saw him and his brothers crouched over her teenage best friend the night she disappeared. Despite careful staging, the crime scene screams assassination. Goran Krantz, Embla's trusted former boss, manages to secure their assignment to Stavic's case, and Embla teams up with a local officer investigating the murder of a teenager, while mining witness recollections for possible sightings of Stavic's assassin. When Milo's brother Luca is murdered. and Kador, the third Stavic brother, disappears with his family, a host of motives, from family treachery to gang wars, form a complex web. This twist-laden third episode offers further evidence of Embla's resilience and investigative tenacity as she confronts her burdens of guilt and fear, opens herself to romantic possibilities, and methodically plows through multiple levels of deceit.

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