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Author: Penney, Stef

Crime & mystery

Published on 8 May 2025 by Quercus Publishing in the United Kingdom.

Paperback | 336 pages
198 x 129 x 23 | 234g

After her magnificent historical epic, The Beasts of Paris, Stef Penney returns to her heartland in this tense thriller set in a small Scandinavian town.

Nordland. A region in the Norwegian Arctic; a remote valley that stretches from the sea up to the mountains and the glaciers.

It is May. In Nordland it’s a time of spring and school-leavers’ celebrations – until Daniel, a popular teenage boy, goes missing. Conflicting stories circulate among his friends, of parties and wild behaviour.

As the search for Daniel widens, the police open a disused mine in the mountains. They find human remains, but this body has been there for decades, its identity a mystery.

The story is told through characters impacted by these events. Misanthropic Svea, whose long life in the area stretches back to the heyday of the mines and beyond, has cut all ties with her family, except for her granddaughter, Elin, a young misfit. Elin and her friend Benny, both impacted by Daniel while alive, become entangled in the hunt for answers, while Svea has deep, dark secrets of her own.