THE INSPECTOR AND SILENCE

A thrilling new addition to the acclaimed Inspector Van Veeteren series. It is summer in Sweden. A secretive and dubious religious sect comes under investigation when a girl on the cusp of adolescence is found dead in the forest near the sect's holiday camp, brutally raped and strangled. Inspector Van Veeteren and the other detectives on the case are mystified and infuriated when the members of the Pure Life--led by a charismatic but unnervingly guarded messiah figure--choose to remain silent about the incident rather than defend themselves. Assisting the authorities, however, is an unidentified woman, whose knowledge suggests she's more than just a passing good Samaritan. And her tips become doubly perplexing as a string of increasingly horrifying new crimes defy everything the police thought they knew about the case. Nesser's novels look for the roots of crime in the ills of society . . . He has seized his chance to create his own dark poetry from these stark materials, and the effect is haunting.