Hakan Nesser

A middle-aged man is killed at his home. He had recently received a series of bizarre phone calls where an old song is played down the line. Before the police can find the culprit, a second man is killed in the same way. Chief Inspector Van Veeteren and his team must dig far back into each man's past.

Fifteen years have passed and the G file remains the one case former Chief Inspector Van Veeteren has never been able to solve. But when Verlangan's daughter reports the private detective missing, Van Veeteren returns to Maardam CID once more. For all Verlangan left behind was a cryptic note; and a telephone message in which he claimed to have finally discovered the proof of G's murderous past.

A woman arrives in the village of Winsford on Exmoor. She has travelled a long way and chosen her secluded cottage carefully. Her sole intention is to outlive her beloved dog Castor. And to survive the torrent of memories that threaten to overwhelm her. Weeks before, Maria and her husband Martin fled Stockholm under a cloud. The couple were bound for Morocco, where Martin planned to write an explosive novel; one that would reveal the truth behind...

For Ewa Moreno, Chief Inspector Van Veeteren's protege, her most perplexing case yet ...

At 59-years-old, Valdemar Roos is tired of life. Working a job he hates, with a wife he barely talks to and two step-daughters he doesn't get on with, he doesn't have a lot to look forward to. Then, one day, a winning lottery ticket gives him an opportunity to start afresh. Without telling a soul, he quits his job and buys a hut in the remote Swedish countryside. Every day he travels down to this man-made oasis, returning each evening to his unsuspecting...

The second in Nesser's Inspector Barbarotti quintet. Mysterious letters and a found diary feature the names of people who proceed to die or fall under murderous threat.