An art expert joins a detective to investigate a horrific murder on a Swedish island, leading them to a mystery rooted in Viking rites and Scandinavia´s deepest, darkest winter. The Queen of French Noir returns with a chilling, utterly captivating gothic thriller, based on a true story. FIRST in a new series.

‘The pace steadily accelerates as Gustawsson orchestrates her plot with breathless ingenuity. A successful page-turner from a rising star’ Financial Times

****Winner of the Cultura Ligue de l'Imaginaire Award 2023****

Art expert Emma Lindahl is anxious when she's asked to appraise the antiques and artefacts in the infamous manor house of one of Sweden's wealthiest families, on the island of Storholmen, where a young woman was murdered nine years earlier, her killer never found.

Emma must work alone, and with the Gussman family apparently avoiding her, she sees virtually no one in the house. Do they have something to hide?

As she goes about her painstaking work and one shocking discovery yields clues that lead to another, Emma becomes determined to uncover the secrets of the house and its occupants.

When the lifeless body of another young woman is found in the icy waters surrounding the island, Detective Karl Rosén arrives to investigate, and memories his failure to solve the first case come rushing back. Could this young woman's tragic death somehow hold the key?

Battling her own demons, Emma joins forces with Karl to embark upon a chilling investigation, plunging them into horrifying secrets from the past – Viking rites and tainted love – and Scandinavia's deepest, darkest winter…