Professor Hans Rekke and Micaela Vargas have earned a reputation for solving the unsolvable. But they've never been confronted by a serial killer.

That changes when Rekke receives a visit from Spanish chief inspector Rafael Corales, who is unable to forget the unsolved murder of a young woman in Santander in 1988. Now other bodies have come to light, marked with signs that seem to be some kind of numerical order.

Still recovering from his latest hypomanic episode - his relationship with Vargas strained by a secret she's keeping - Rekke agrees to help track down the killer.

Clues from a posthumously published short story by the victim draw him undercover into the murky world of Sweden's literary scene - authors, agents and producers who are past masters at selling a lie. To unmask the killer, Rekke must relearn the difference between fact and fiction, and discover what really happened that night in Santander in 1988.

Published
August 25, 2026
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Author

David Lagercrantz

David Lagercrantz is a Swedish journalist and bestselling author. He is the son of Olof and Martina Lagercrantz and grew up in Solna and Drottningholm, just outside of Stockholm. After studying philosophy and religion, he obtained a degree from the Gothenburg School of Journalism. He did a four-year stint as crime reporter at Expressen, at the time the largest newspaper in Scandinavia, where he covered the most prominent murder cases in Sweden during the late 80s and early 90s. He made his book debut in 1997 with the story of Göran Kropp, a Swedish adventurer who summited Mount Everest with neither oxygen nor Sherpas, barely one week after…