Under the Storm

PubA farmhouse burns to the ground with someone inside and a community is never the same—both a page-turning whodunit and a deeply touching coming-of-age story by one of Sweden's top criminologists and "a rising star in Scandinavian crime fiction" (Kirkus)

"Carlsson is the finest crime writer we have in Sweden."—David Lagercrantz, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Girl in the Spider’s Web and other novels in Stieg Larsson’s Millennium series

“[He] is to the police procedural what Cormac McCarthy is to the Western."—Anthony Marra, New York Times bestselling author of Mercury Pictures Presents and A Constellation of Vital Phenomena

On a cold November night, a farmhouse burns to the ground. Inside a young woman is found dead—not from the flames but murdered. To the people in the rural community of Marbäck, the fire becomes a reference point: a before and after. For ten-year-old Isak Nyqvist, it sets in motion something he cannot control, igniting his future into an inferno.

The police immediately focus their attention on Edvard Christensson, the boyfriend of the murdered woman and Isak’s beloved uncle. After a quick investigation, Edvard is found guilty and sentenced to life in prison and Marbäck believes it can return to its innocence. Vidar Jörgensson, the rookie officer who first responded to the fire, prides himself on helping solved the murder. Little does he know this will become the defining case of his career and that it will drive him to the brink of professional and personal disaster—and link his fate to young Isak's.

A celebrated author and professor of criminology, Christoffer Carlsson digs deep into the psyches of ordinary people and shows how one crime can haunt a community for decades. A #1 international bestseller, Under the Storm is already a modern classic of Scandinavian crime fiction and shows why many regard Carlsson as one of the great crime writers of his generation.