A promising debut by a first-time author, strong and believable characters of two female investigators with a multifaceted past.
"His face lands on a moss-covered rock, his body loses control and his eyes roll. He hears them coming: Death to the wolf, death to the wolf, death to the wolf. "
On a remote island off the east coast of Sweden, a 14-year-old girl is found drowned in a flooded limestone quarry. His wrists are slit, a string is tangled in his hair and the number 26 is written in marker on one of his sides. There's no sign of him around the quarry. The day after, a wealthy antique shop owner is discovered brutally murdered in her home on the other side of the island. In addition to the numerous stab wounds in the chest, two incisions depicting a cross can be seen on the neck.
While the girl's death is ruled a suicide, crime commissioner Sanna Berling and her new colleague Eir Pedersen start an investigation into the murder of the antique shop owner. But Sanna cannot escape the terrifying connection between the last case and the dead girl. At the same time as solving the case, Sanna is struggling with her past, living in a garage, and is apparently the only one who can work with the quirky Eir, who doesn't take crap from anyone.
It soon becomes clear that these events are just the beginning of a series of other bestial murders. And so the fight against time begins. A struggle in which the key to the horrific truth seems to be hidden in an old photograph of a group of children in animal masks, and which will also be far more personal than Sanna could ever have imagined.
