Under the Storm - A Novel

Informationen zum Autor Christoffer Carlsson holds a PhD in criminology from the University of Stockholm, where he continues to teach, and is one of Sweden’s leading crime experts. He is the youngest winner of the Best Swedish Crime Novel of the Year. Klappentext "On a cold November night in 1994, a farmhouse burns to the ground. Inside, a young woman is found dead--murdered. To the people in the rural community of Marbèack, it becomes a reference point: a before and after. For ten-year-old Isak Nyqvist, the fire sets in motion something he cannot control, as if a stray spark has found its way inside him, igniting his future into an inferno. The police quickly focus their attention on Edvard Christensson, the boyfriend of the murdered woman and Isak's beloved uncle. After a quick investigation where the evidence speaks for itself, Edvard is sentenced to life in prison and Marbèack believes it can return to its innocence. Vidar Jèorgensson, the rookie police officer who was one of the first responders to the fire, prides himself on having contributed to solving the murder. Little does he know this will become the defining case of his career, or that it will drive him to the brink of professional and personal disaster--and link his fate to Isak's"-- Leseprobe 1 They say death takes you. It’s an old expression, from the time back when death was an actual character you could meet in the Marbäck forest or along the road. An ice-cold hand grabs you by the throat; a shadow expands around your body until you can no longer breathe. That’s how you picture it when you’re a child. People say other things, too. There’s this word, used by old men and women around here. It comes across their lips like sinister smoke when someone is a little mean or nasty, when a place or thing has this unpleasant, uncanny feel to it: kymig. He’s kymig, that one. Never liked him. Don’t go there. That house feels so kymig. I did something kymigt tonight. That’s what people say. And, if you were to suddenly find yourself in some kind of danger, it’s not I don’t know what to do but I don’t know where to put myself. As if your first instinct is to hide. Tonight, the flames are reaching for the sky. The weather forecast calls for a downpour, but not a drop of rain is falling. Everything is covered with soot and ash, and the big trees are getting singed. The smell of smoke drifts all the way up to Simlångsdalen, and into Skedala, over a mile away. It’s an event people will remember, a reference point. It creates a before and an after. Where were you when . . . Was that before or after . . . Down in Tolarp, the houses and farms are far apart. Closest to the Markströms’ house is Ulrika Antonsson’s farm. A big field separates their properties. Ulrika is the one who calls it in. “There’s a fire,” she shouts into the phone. “The Markströms’ house is f***ing burning down! Send the fire department, the police, and ambulance, everything, fast as hell.” She walks out into the November night and captures the fire in a photo. She’s not the only one to do so. Later they’ll get requests from the newspapers: The local paper’s photographers don’t arrive until the fire department has begun to fight the flames, so their pictures don’t turn out. Almost everyone refuses the offers, but Ulrika needs the money and secretly sells her amateur photos for a handsome price. Soon they’re everywhere. Her name is never mentioned in connection with them—they’re credited only as “reader photographs”—but everyone knows. Great tongues of flame lick at the black night. The Markströms’ brown house is an old one-story wood-frame home, with small windows and a flat roof. The house has a woodstove and a gas oven, bad wiring and old electrics; its insulation is dry as a bone. Previously, these sorts of details weren’t widely known, but soon everyone is aware of t...

Produktdetails

• Autoren: Christoffer Carlsson, Rachel Willson-Broyles
• Verlag: Hogarth US
• Sprache: Englisch
• Produktform: Taschenbuch
• Erschienen: 27.02.2024
• EAN: 9780593449387
• ISBN: 978-0-593-44938-7
• Seiten: 416
• Abmessung: 132 mm x 203 mm x 23 mm
• Serie: Halland Suite
• Thema: Belletristik > Spannung