Christoffer Carlsson

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The Living and the Dead

THE AWARD-WINNING INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER

Two decades after a string of unsolved murders in a working-class town, another body turns up, ripping apart friendships and community—a captivating mystery and graceful investigation of brotherhood and family by a renowned criminologist

"Carlsson is far and away my favorite Scandinavian crime writer at the moment, and The Living and the Dead is among his very best."—Fredrik Backman

Winner of the three biggest prizes in Scandinavian crime writing: Best Swedish Crime Novel • The Glass Key Award for Best Scandinavian Crime Novel • Danish Rozenkrantz Prize for Best Translated Crime Novel

Small towns sometimes have a voice of their own.

In 1999 the Halland police discover a car crashed into a tree with a bloody steering wheel and the body of a teenage boy in the trunk. As the investigation unfolds, Officer Siri Bengtsson, a newcomer in town, keeps returning to two local boys, best friends whose stories she knows don't add up.

Twenty years later, a similar murder takes place, and seemingly resolved questions are reopened. Siri, who abruptly quit the force years before in frustration and despair, becomes the town's only hope to solve the killings and unpack a community's long-held secrets.

In The Living and the Dead, Christoffer Carlsson takes us to the fields and forests of Halland in Western Sweden, a region of farmers, mechanics, and truck drivers torn apart by economic injustice and self-deceit. Carlsson masterfully transports the reader to a world where the portal between the living and the dead is flung wide open, where no one is entirely innocent and decades-old crimes will not be forgotten.