The Living and the Dead

A beautifully written, haunting murder mystery, set in a rural Swedish town, where one community's secrets will be laid bare over the next twenty years . . .

______________________________________

WINNER OF THE GLASS KEY AWARD FOR BEST NORDIC CRIME NOVEL
WINNER OF THE BEST SWEDISH CRIME NOVEL AWARD
WINNER OF DENMARK’S PALLE ROSENKRANTZ PRIZE FOR BEST TRANSLATED CRIME NOVEL

‘All the makings of a page-turning thriller, but with an emotional depth that is truly rare’
FREDRIK BACKMAN

'Resembling a novel by Thomas Hardy or William Faulkner rewritten as Scandi crime… Stylistically classy and psychologically rich'
THE TIMES

'An epic, ambitious literary crime novel'
FINANCIAL TIMES
‘Carlsson plumbs what can and cannot be known about human lives and criminal investigations’
NEW YORK TIMES

___________________

On a cold, snowy winter's night in 1999, Sander and Killian leave a house party together, in a small town in rural Sweden. The very best of friends, they imagine they will remain so forever.

The next morning, each is a key suspect in a murder. Each has something they want to conceal from the police. And from the other.

The hunt for Mikael Söderström's killer will take over twenty years. It will see a detective leave the force forever. And it won't end until a second body is found, and the tight-knit community's secrets are finally brought to light . . .
___________________

'His serpentine plot flows to a natural yet shocking conclusion'
WALL STREET JOURNAL

‘Carlsson is to the police procedural what Cormac McCarthy is to the Western’
ANTHONY MARRA

'Magnificent, epic, immediate'
A. J. FINN

'A psychologically rich study of guilt and memory'
I PAPER