"In a tiny shack in the largest township in South Africa, Nombeko Mayeki is born. Put to work at five years old and orphaned at ten, she quickly learns that the world expects nothing more from her than to die young, be it from drugs, alcohol, or just plain despair. But Nombeko has grander plans. She learns to read and write, and at just fifteen, using her cunning and fearlessness, she makes it out of Soweto with millions of smuggled diamonds in her...

"Summer 2003: A soccer referee -- an immigrant from war-torn Afghanistan -- is found dead after a youth match in a Stockholm suburb. The father of one of the players, who had threatened the ref, is quickly arrested, but he protests his innocence. The police decide to consult Professor Hans Rekke, a world-renowned authority on interrogation and prisoner confessions. Things do not proceed as planned as Rekke challenges the team's assumptions and demolishes...

Several years after the disappearance of his wife Cecilia, Martin Berg is tumbling into a life crisis. The owner of an ailing Swedish publishing house, he's left wondering what could have been. Meanwhile, Martin's old and much more remarkable friend, the artist Gustav Becker, is visiting Gothenburg, plastering billboards across the city that feature the eyes of his greatest muse, Cecilia Berg. Feeling out of place and restless in the city, Martin's...

The days that change your life forever start off like all the others. One winter evening just before Christmas, Stockholm is plunged into a sudden, citywide blackout. Radio, internet, phone service--all cut out simultaneously, cloaking the city in darkness and silence. On the pitch-black streets, a young woman carries a message for her estranged father. It may be the key to reversing the blackout and preventing further attacks. But someone powerful...

"It is 1943 and Sweden's neutrality in the war is under pressure. Laura Dahlgren, the bright, young right-hand of the chief negotiator to Germany, is privy to these tensions, even as she tries to keep her head down in the mounting fray. However, when Laura's best friend from university, Britta, is discovered murdered in cold blood, Laura is determined to find the killer. Prior to her death, Britta sent a report on the racial profiling in Scandinavia...

"It's May and the snow has hardly melted in Göteborg, Sweden, but things are heating up quickly for Detective Inspector Irene Huss in the Violent Crimes Unit. The body of a teenage girl is found in the woods, naked and horrifically scarred. Then there's the mummified body that is discovered bricked up in a chimney on a demolition site, not to mention the city's ongoing problem with gang violence. With the sudden influx of cases and one detective...

"Can a career woman truly have it all? Powerful marketing executive Kemi Adeyemi has finally found the man she needs, but Tobias Wikström thinks she's the most selfish woman he has ever met for asking him to give up his life in Sweden and move to the US for her own comfort. Will Kemi be forced to stay if she wants to keep him while chipping away at her hard-earned career? As things begin to sour and challenge her relationship with Tobias, someone...

"The landline rings as Agneta is waving off her grandchildren. Just one word comes out of the receiver: 'Geiger'. For decades, Agneta has always known that this moment would come, but she is shaken. She knows what it means. Retrieving her weapon from its hiding place, she attaches the silencer and creeps up behind her husband before pressing the barrel to his temple.Then she squeezes the trigger and disappears--leaving behind her wallet and keys....

Ten-year-old Lisa tells about her brothers and playmates and the happy times they spend at work and at play in their Swedish village.

"After giving birth, Anna is utterly lost. She and her family move to the unfamiliar, snowy city of Stockholm. Anxiety threatens to completely engulf the new mother, who obsessively devours online news and compulsively buys clothes she can't afford. To avoid sinking deeper into her depression, Anna forces herself to read and write. My Work is a novel about the unique and fundamental experience of giving birth, mixing different literary forms--fiction,...