Stefan Lindman is a police office on extended sick leave facing the possibility of a life-threatening illness. Unable to confide in his colleagues or his girlfriend, he feels cast adrift and rudderless. Then he hears of the death of a former colleague, one Herbert Molin, retired, who has been found murdered in a remote cottage in the vast forests of northern Sweden.
He decides to visit the scene of the crime and travels to the area. He learns that Herbert Moulin had no close friends, just an obsession with the tango. He recalls that at when he worked with him, Herbert Moulin was often afraid but never confided in Stefan, just of what he was afraid.
Out of courtesy Stefan makes himself known to the local police who are dealing with the murder; at first they are slightly hostile to a visiting policeman on their patch, but he unexpectedly strikes up a friendship with the police officer in charge of the case. With the horror of the death of Herbert Moulin on his mind and with time on his hands he does some investigating on his own and although he turns up some interesting information that could lead to the killer, his investigations into the life of Herbert Moulin are what fills him with horror and disbelief. For Herbert Moulin was clearly not what he portrayed himself to be. Indeed was he Herbert Moulin?
As with The White Lioness the story is skilfully told from multiple points of view. It is overall a bleak story for both victim and killer.
Sean Barrett excels himself in this book. I enjoyed his reading of The White
Lioness, but he deals magnificently with the introspection in which Stefan indulges,
striking the perfect tone for the fear that Stefan feels. Brilliantly read.
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Lizzie Hayes
Other books in the series are Faceless Killers, The Fifth Woman, Sidetracked,
One Step Behind, Firewall, The Dogs of Riga, The White Lioness.