The Drowned by David Arrowsmith and Christina Gustavson
Published, October 2023

I’m hooked on the sort of Scandi noir dramas that are so popular these days and, having really enjoyed David Arrowsmith’s debut novel (Corona, reviewed here in June this year), I had high hopes for this book. I wasn’t disappointed. It’s a real page turner and I was annoyed that I only had time to read the first 30 pages before “lights out”. I started reading it again first thing the next day and I was so engrossed I finished the rest of it in one sitting.

The story begins with former kriminalkommissarie, Gustav Kjällström, discovering a girl lying in the snow outside his cabin in the woods. She’s frozen and barely breathing. Little by little her story is unravelled and similarities are identified to one of Kjällström’s old cases: the so-called Lady in the Lake killings. The perpetrator is safely locked away in in a secure facility, so is he controlling further murders from a distance or is it a stranger’s  attempt at a copy cat murder?

Try to imagine Søren Sveistrup and Lee Child collaborating on a murder mystery set in Sweden and you’ll get an idea of characterisation, style and atmosphere. As I read it, I was so thoroughly transported to Sweden, complete with lots of coffee and kanelbullar, that it came as quite a surprise to read a reference to the thoroughly English “Cold Comfort Farm”.

Well written, dark, disturbing and really gripping. Next instalment please. Now!