Book picks similar to
The Widows’ Cafe by Camilla Läckberg
short-stories
mystery
camilla-lackberg
crime
Spring Tide
Cilla Börjlind - 2012
Three men on the beach are digging a hole, covertly watched by a young boy. His intrigue turns to horror as he makes out the fourth figure of the woman for whom the hole is intended. Buried up to her neck in the sand, the high tide is rapidly approaching. Still screaming in terror, the victim takes her last breath as water fills her nose and mouth—in her stomach, she feels her baby kick. And her waters break. The abhorrent crime remains unsolved 24 years later; but gruesome violence is still prevalent. A gang has been killing homeless people in parks, filming their attacks, and broadcasting them on the internet. The police have their work cut out trying to keep abreast of the crime wave. Olivia Rönning hopes to follow in her father's footsteps and join their ranks in the next few months as she completes her training; she has only one last hurdle to overcome over the summer break, a challenge from her professor to pick a cold case and solve it. Should be simple, she thinks. Little does she know the world she is getting involved in, the danger she faces, and the ugly truths she risks uncovering.
Broken
Karin Fossum - 2006
A strange man is in her bedroom. She lies there in silence, paralyzed with fear. The woman is an author and the man one of her characters, one in a long line that waits in her driveway for the time when she'll tell their stories. He is so desperate that he has resorted to breaking into her house and demanding that she begin. He, the author decides, is named Alvar Eide, forty-two years old, single,works in a gallery. He lives a quiet, orderly life and likes it that way—no demands, no unpleasantness. Until one icy winter day when a young drug addict, skinny and fragile, walks into the gallery. Alvar gives her a cup of coffee to warm her up. And then one day she appears on his doorstep. Broken is an unconventional, subtle, and disturbing mystery from a master of the form.
An Event in Autumn
Henning Mankell - 2004
A Vintage Canada Original. Soon after Inspector Kurt Wallander moves into a new house with a charming garden, he makes an upsetting discovery: there is a hand--indeed, an entire corpse--buried in a shallow grave in the garden. It's the responsibility of the local police to handle the investigation...but Wallander, even though busy with another case, is soon drawn into the search for the truth about his new home, and its previous owner.
Mind's Eye
Håkan Nesser - 1993
And now the novel that introduced Chief Inspector Van Veeteren is available for the first time in English. The swift conviction left Van Veeteren uneasy: Janek Mitter woke one morning with a brutal hangover and his wife dead in the bathtub. With only the flimsiest defense, he is found guilty and imprisoned in a mental institution. But when Mitter is murdered in his bed, Van Veeteren regrets not following his gut and launches an investigation into the two murders. As the chief inspector delves deeper, the twisted root of these violent murders will shock even him.From the Trade Paperback edition.
Victim Without a Face
Stefan Ahnhem - 2014
He has planned a six-week vacation before he starts a new job at the Homicide Department. But after only a few hours in their new home, he is asked to investigate a brutal murder. The body of Jörgen Pålsson, one of Risk’s former classmates, has been found with both hands missing. Soon the bodies of more old classmates are found, and Risk finds himself in a race against time: Can they find the murderer before the entire class is killed?
Never Alone
Elizabeth Haynes - 2016
But she doesn’t consider herself lonely. She has two dogs, a wide network of friends and the support of her best friend, Sophie.When an old acquaintance, Aiden Beck, needs somewhere to stay for a while, Sarah’s cottage seems ideal; and renewing her relationship with Aiden gives her a reason to smile again. It’s supposed to be temporary, but not everyone is comfortable with the arrangement: her children are wary of his motives, and Will Brewer, an old friend of her son’s, seems to have taken it upon himself to check up on Sarah at every opportunity. Even Sophie has grown remote and distant.After Sophie disappears, it’s clear she hasn’t been entirely honest with anyone, including Will, who seems more concerned for Sarah’s safety than anyone else. As the weather closes in, events take a dramatic turn and Kitty too goes missing. Suddenly Sarah finds herself in terrible danger, unsure of who she can still trust.But she isn’t facing this alone; she has Aiden, and Aiden offers the protection that Sarah needs. Doesn’t he?
Still Waters
Viveca Sten - 2008
Before long, he has identified the deceased as Krister Berggren, a bachelor from the mainland who has been missing for months. All signs point to an accident—until another brutalized corpse is found at the local bed-and-breakfast. But this time it is Berggren’s cousin, whom Thomas interviewed in Stockholm just days before.As the island’s residents reel from the news, Thomas turns to his childhood friend, local lawyer Nora Linde. Together, they attempt to unravel the riddles left behind by these two mysterious outsiders—while trying to make sense of the difficult twists their own lives have taken since the shared summer days of their youth.
Wolf Winter
Cecilia Ekbäck - 2014
"Exquisitely suspenseful, beautifully written, and highly recommended."-Lee Child "Visually acute, skillfully written; it won't easily erase its tracks in the reader's mind."- Hilary Mantel"Wolf winter,'" she said, her voice small. "I wanted to ask about it. You know, what it is."He was silent for a long time. "It's the kind of winter that will remind us we are mortal," he said. "Mortal and alone."Swedish Lapland, 1717. Maija, her husband Paavo and her daughters Frederika and Dorotea arrive from their native Finland, hoping to forget the traumas of their past and put down new roots in this harsh but beautiful land. Above them looms Blackåsen, a mountain whose foreboding presence looms over the valley and whose dark history seems to haunt the lives of those who live in its shadow.While herding the family's goats on the mountain, Frederika happens upon the mutilated body of one of their neighbors, Eriksson. The death is dismissed as a wolf attack, but Maija feels certain that the wounds could only have been inflicted by another man. Compelled to investigate despite her neighbors' strange disinterest in the death and the fate of Eriksson's widow, Maija is drawn into the dark history of tragedies and betrayals that have taken place on Blackåsen. Young Frederika finds herself pulled towards the mountain as well, feeling something none of the adults around her seem to notice.As the seasons change, and the "wolf winter," the harshest winter in memory, descends upon the settlers, Paavo travels to find work, and Maija finds herself struggling for her family's survival in this land of winter-long darkness. As the snow gathers, the settlers' secrets are increasingly laid bare. Scarce resources and the never-ending darkness force them to come together, but Maija, not knowing who to trust and who may betray her, is determined to find the answers for herself. Soon, Maija discovers the true cost of survival under the mountain, and what it will take to make it to spring.
Shadow
Karin Alvtegen - 2007
Usually a death is a sad but straightforward event. But sometimes a resident will die and there are no friends or family to contact. This is when Marianne Folkesson arrives, employed by the state to close up a life with dignity and respect. Gerda Persson has lain dead in her apartment for three days before Marianne is called. When she arrives, she finds the apartment tidy and ordered. Gerda's life seems to have been quite ordinary. Until Marianne opens the freezer and finds it full of books, neatly stacked and wrapped in clingfilm, a thick layer of ice covering them. They are all by Axel Ragnerfeldt, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, with handwritten dedications to Gerda from the author. What story do these books have to tell, about Gerda, and more importantly about Ragnerfeldt, a man whose fame is without precedent in the nation's cultural life, but seldom gives interviews?
Death’s Door
Paul Finch - 2018
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When a stalking case lands on DS ‘Heck’ Heckenburg’s desk it seems pretty straightforward.But when Heck discovers that the victim lives in the same house that a young woman was brutally murdered in six years earlier, instinct tells him that it’s not so simple after all.Before long Heck is entangled in something far more dangerous than he had expected. In a race against the clock, can Heck and Gemma stop history from repeating itself – or will they end up getting caught in the crossfire?
The Sunday Times bestseller returns with a heart pounding short story that fans of M.J. Arlidge and Stuart MacBride won’t be able to put down.
The Golden Child
Wendy James - 2017
Two gorgeous children, a handsome husband, destiny under control. For her real-life alter-ego Beth, things are unravelling. Tensions are simmering with her husband, mother-in-law and even her own mother. Her teenage daughters, once the objects of her existence, have moved beyond her grasp and one of them has shown signs of, well, thoughtlessness ...Then a classmate of one daughter is callously bullied and the finger of blame is pointed at Beth's clever, beautiful child. Shattered, shamed and frightened, two families must negotiate worlds of cruelty they are totally ill-equipped for.This is a novel that grapples with modern-day spectres of selfies, selfishness and cyberbullying. It plays with our fears of parenting, social media and Queen Bees, and it asks the question: just how well do you know your child?
Unwanted
Kristina Ohlsson - 2009
Despite hundreds of potential witnesses, no one noticed when the girl was taken. Her distraught mother was left behind at the previous station in what seemed to be a coincidence. The train crew was alerted and kept a watchful eye on the sleeping child. But when the train pulled into Stockholm Central Station, the little girl had vanished. Inspector Alex Recht and his special team of federal investigators, assisted by the investigative analyst Fredrika Bergman, are assigned to what at first appears to be a classic custody fight. But when the child is found dead in the far north of Sweden with the word "unwanted" scribbled on her forehead, the case soon turns into the investigation team's worst nightmare - the pursuit of a brilliant and ruthless killer.
Harbor
John Ajvide Lindqvist - 2008
One ordinary winter afternoon on a snowy island, Anders and Cecilia take their six-year-old daughter Maja across the ice to visit the lighthouse in the middle of the frozen channel. While the couple explore the lighthouse, Maja disappears -- either into thin air or under thin ice -- leaving not even a footprint in the snow. Two years later, alone and more or less permanently drunk, Anders returns to the island to regroup. He slowly realises that people are not telling him all they know; even his own mother, it seems, is keeping secrets. What is happening in Domaro, and what power does the sea have over the town's inhabitants?
The Swede
Robert Karjel - 2010
But the detainee, a suspect in an Islamist-inspired terror attack in the United States, refuses to talk.Ernst Grip, a Swedish security officer, has no idea why he's been dispatched to New York City. The FBI agent he meets on arrival, Shauna Friedman, seems to know a little too much about him. And when he arrives at his real destination, the American authorities have just one question: Is their terror suspect a Swedish citizen?In the process of uncovering the prisoner's true identity, Grip discovers the man's ties to a group of other suspects—a ruthless American arms dealer, a Czech hit man, a mysterious nurse from Kansas, and a heartbreakingly naive Pakistani. The closer Grip gets to the truth, the more complicated the deception becomes. Who is real and who is leading a double life?
Saving Noah
Lucinda Berry - 2017
Not since Lionel Shriver brought us We Need to Talk About Kevin has a writer delved into the complexities of a disturbed mother/son relationship. Until now. Meet Noah—an A-honor roll student, award-winning swimmer, and small-town star destined for greatness. There weren’t any signs that something was wrong until the day he confesses to molesting little girls during swim team practice. He’s sentenced to eighteen months in a juvenile sexual rehabilitation center.His mother, Adrianne, refuses to turn her back on him despite his horrific crimes, but her husband won’t allow Noah back into their home. In a series of shocking and shattering revelations, Adrianne is forced to make the hardest decision of her life. Just how far will she go to protect her son?Saving Noah challenges everything you think you know about teenage sexual offenders. It will keep you up at night long after you've read the last page, questioning beliefs you once thought were true.