The Stranger

A woman is killed in a car crash with impossibly high blood alcohol levels despite rarely drinking, and the deaths of a reality television contestant in the same small town push Detective Patrik Hedström into an investigation connecting present crimes to a series of cold cases spread across Sweden. Camilla Läckberg's fourth Fjällbacka novel takes place partly under the intrusive eye of a television production crew that has arrived to film a celebrity competition show, turning Fjällbacka's dark undercurrents into something uncomfortably public.

Simon Vance brings his characteristic authority to the Scandinavian setting, handling the dual storylines with the clarity the novel's structure requires. His narration of the media circus elements captures their brittle energy without caricature, and his management of the historical cold cases gives them weight equal to the present-day investigation. At just over eleven hours, The Stranger is a tightly constructed thriller that deepens the series' mythology.