WINNER OF SWEDEN’S BEST FIRST CRIME NOVEL AWARD • A hardheaded attorney returns to her hometown to solve a vicious murder in this “richly atmospheric” (Kirkus Reviews) thriller from the acclaimed author of The Blood Spilt

“This impressive debut heralds another striking voice from Scandinavia.”—Booklist

In the land of silence and snow, the killing has begun . . .

Rebecka Martinsson is heading home to Kiruna, the town she’d left in disgrace years before. A Stockholm attorney, Rebecka has a good reason to return: her friend Sanna, whose brother has been horrifically murdered in the revivalist church his charisma helped create. Beautiful and fragile, Sanna needs someone like Rebecka to remove the shadow of guilt that is engulfing her, to forestall an ambitious prosecutor and a dogged policewoman. But to help her friend, and to find the real killer of a man she once adored and is now not sure she ever knew, Rebecka must relive the darkness she left behind in Kiruna, delve into a sordid conspiracy of deceit, and confront a killer whose motives are dark, wrenching, and impossible to guess. . . .