Vorab-RezensentenJohan Theorin

Akashic Books continues its groundbreaking series of original noir anthologies, launched in 2004 with Brooklyn Noir. Each story is set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the city of the book. Featuring brand-new stories translated from Swedish by: Unni Drougge, Inger Edelfeldt, Carl-Michael Edenborg, Åke Edwardsson, Torbjörn Elensky, Inger Frimansson, Carl Johan de Geer, Martin Holmén, Nathan Larson, Malte Persson, Anna-Karin Selberg, Johan Theorin, and Lina Wolff. The excitement around Scandinavian crime fiction coming in the wake of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo has been largely centered on Sweden--and for good reason, as revealed here. The chill of the country's northern climate combines with Sweden's rich cultural traditions (and contradictions) to create riveting stories by some of the country's very best contemporary authors.

On a gray September day, on an island off the coast of Sweden, six -year -old Jens Davidsson ventured out of his backyard, walked out into a fog, and vanished….Now twenty years have passed, and in this magnificent debut novel of suspense—a runaway bestseller in Sweden—the boy’s mother returns to the place where her son disappeared, drawn by a chilling package sent in the mail… In it, lovingly wrapped, is one of Jens’ sandals—sandals Julia Davidsson put on her son’s feet that very last morning. Now, with only a handful of clues, Julia and her father are questioning islanders who were present the day Jens vanished—and making a shocking connection to Öland’s most notorious murder case: the killing spree of a wealthy young man who fled the island and died years before Jens was even born. Suddenly the island that once seemed so achingly familiar turns strange and dangerous… Until Julia finds herself facing truths she never imagined—about what really happened on that September day twenty years ago, about who may have crossed paths with little Jens in the fog, and how a child could truly vanish without a trace…until now.