The author of the internationally best-selling Harry Hole series now gives us an electrifying stand-alone novel set amid Oslo's hierarchy of corruption, from which one very unusual young man is about to propel himself into a mission of brutal revenge.

Before Harry took on the neo-Nazi gangs of Oslo, before he met Rakel, before The Snowman tried to take everything he held dear, he went to Australia. Harry Hole is sent to Sydney to investigate the murder of Inger Holter, a young Norwegian girl, who was working in a bar. Initially sidelined as an outsider, Harry becomes central to the Australian police investigation when they start to notice a number of unsolved rape and murder cases around the country....

"Time shifts between Inspector Sejer's interrogation of the accused Ragna Reigel and the shocking events that led up to her arrest. How did this lonely, quiet woman come to kill a man--or did she?"--

It is Christmas Eve, and 55 year old Professor Pal Andersen is alone, drinking coffee and cognac in his living room. Lost in thought, he looks out of the window and sees a man strangle a woman in the apartment across the street. Professor Andersen fails to report the crime. The days pass, and he becomes paralysed by indecision. Desperate for respite, the professor sets off to a local sushi bar, only to find himself face to face with the murderer.

A tale moving from the final months of World War II to the present, and from the Russian front to contemporary South Africa, follows the dual adventures of a freedom-seeking war martyr and an alcoholic police officer who is drawn into a mystery with past origins

It is only the beginning of May but in Oslo a brutal heat wave has coincided with an alarming increase in violent crime. In the latest instance, police investigator Hanne Wilhelmsen is sent to a macabre crime scene on the outskirts of town. An abandoned shed is covered in blood. On one wall an eight-digit number is written in blood. There is no body--nor any sign of a victim. Is it a kid's prank or foul play? Is it even human blood? As more bloody...

"Christmas shoppers stop to hear a Salvation Army concert on a crowded Oslo street. A gunshot cuts through the music and the bitter cold: one of the singers falls dead, shot in the head at point-blank range. Harry Hole--the Oslo Police Department's best investigator and worst civil servant--has little to work with: no suspect, no weapon, and no motive. But Harry's troubles will multiply. As the search closes in, the killer becomes increasingly desperate,...

The murder has been solved, but has justice been done? Harry Hole is back in Oslo. He's been away for some time, but his ghosts have a way of catching up with him. The case that brings him back is already closed. There is no room for doubt: the young junkie was shot dead by a fellow addict. The police don't want him back.

Oslo, 1970s. Olav, an extremely talented ""fixer"" whose unexpected capacity for love is as far-reaching as his talent for murder, works for Oslo's crime kingpin, ""fixing"" anyone who causes him trouble. But it's becoming clear to Olav that the more you know about your boss's business, the more your boss might want you fixed yourself, especially if you've fallen in love with his wife.

"Roy and Carl, brothers from a small mountain town, have spent their whole lives hiding from the darkness in their pasts—Roy by staying put and staying quiet, and Carl by running far away. Roy believed his little brother was gone for good. But Carl has big plans for his hometown. And when he returns with a mysterious new wife and a business opportunity that seems too good to be true, simmering tensions begin to surface and unexplained deaths in...