Forthcoming books from Quercus Publishing incl Machlehose Press

 January 2025

Some murders can't be solved in just one lifetime. From the no 1 bestselling author Elly Griffiths, The Frozen People is a brand-new series with a brand-new heroine to fall in love with. Ali Dawson is as colourful as her bright red hair - warm, funny, forthright - and mother to a grown son, Finn. Ali works on cold cases, crimes so old, the joke goes, they are almost frozen. What most people don't know is that Ali and the team travel back in time to complete their research - a process pioneered by the mysterious Italian physicist, Serafina Pellegrini. So far, the team has only ventured a few years or decades back, but Ali's boss has a new assignment for her. He wants her to step back to 1850, the heart of the Victorian age, to clear the name of Cain Templeton, the eccentric great-grandfather of Tory MP Isaac Templeton, her son's boss. To ready herself for the challenge ahead, Ali researches the Victorian era. She learns that Cain Templeton was part of a sinister group called The Collectors, the rumour being that you had to kill a woman to become a member. Duly prepared, she arrives in London in January 1850 in the middle of a freezing winter. She is directed to a house inhabited by artists and is greeted by a dead woman at her feet. Soon she finds herself in extreme danger. Even worse - she appears to be stuck, unable to make her way back to the present, to the life she loves and to her son, Finn.

Deep deception, twisted fate. Thames Valley has a new Superintendent - DCS Wainwright - young, charismatic and ruthless, charged with pushing through big reforms. Her in-tray is full of problems - and at the top of the pile is the problem of Wilkins and Wilkins. Trailer park boy DI Ryan Wilkins, interesting looking in baggy trackies and over-large lime-green puffa. In his personnel file is a handwritten note scribbled by the outgoing Super: 'Do not, repeat not, give him responsibility.' And posh boy DI Ray Wilkins, improbably handsome in navy blazer and tan chinos: 'Thinks too highly of himself. More experience needed at the wet end.' Their previous investigations - though somehow successful - were models of disorder and dysfunction. The new Super needs to take action. There's been a shocking murder in the heart of Oxford, the stabbing of a security guard during an attempted armed robbery. Meanwhile, an elderly professor of linguistics goes missing from his home in cosy Iffley Village. The high-profile murder investigation can be safely handled by reliable detective DI Hare. The entry-level enquiry into the wandering academic can be given to the problem duo, with instructions to keep it simple. But when the body of the professor is found, still dressed in his pyjamas and dripping wet, spreadeagled on a hotel lawn miles from home, things get a little unexpected for the Wilkinses. Will Ray keep on top of the brief? Will Ryan keep it together? A Voice in the Night is by Simon Mason.

February 2025

The Stolen Heart is by Andrey Kurkov. Samson Kolechko has been assigned a most perplexing case - though it is mostly perplexing because it's hard to understand why selling the meat of one's own pig constitutes a crime. But apparently it does, and at the insistence of the Chekist secret police officer assigned to "reinforce" the Lybid police station, Samson does his diligent - if diffident - best. Yet no sooner has he got started than his live-in fiancée Nadezhda is abducted by striking railway workers who object to the census she's carrying out. And when you factor in a mysterious thief in the police station itself, a deadly tram accident that may have been pre-meditated, and the potential reappearance of the culprit in the case of the silver bone, it's no wonder the "meat case" takes a back seat. But it is in the pursuit of that petty-fogging, seemingly mundane matter that Samson's fate lies - and Nadezhda's too, for the two are inextricably entwined.

March 2025

1999. A group of archaeologists are excavating a Bronze Age burial site in the grounds of Trusloe Hall, a minor stately home in Wiltshire. Excited that their dig is being filmed for a TV documentary, the group are camping onsite and having the time of their lives. In the blink of an eye, one of the party disappears: a young woman called Nazma Kirmani. An extensive police investigation fails to find any trace of her, and the case goes cold for over twenty years. 2020. When a chance discovery presents new evidence into Nazma's disappearance, DI Lockyer and DC Gemma Broad are put on the case. Did Nazma intend to disappear, or was she taken? Did she walk out on her life, or was she murdered? Lockyer must see past the upheavals in his own life to find out the truth for her desperate family. Hollow Grave is by Kate Webb.

Annie thought the murders were over. She was wrong. It is autumn in Castle Knoll and Annie Adams is busy settling into her new home. She doesn't find Gravesdown Hall particularly cosy, especially since she found two dead bodies there over the summer. What's more, ever since she arrived in the village, Annie has had the creeping sense she's being watched. Lonely, and desperate for some company, Annie starts talking to a stranger she meets in the grounds of the estate. The striking old woman introduces herself as Peony Lane, the fortune-teller who predicted Great Aunt Frances' murder all those years ago. And now she has a fortune to tell Annie. Desperate not to fall into the same trap as Frances, Annie flees Peony Lane, refusing to hear any of her grim predictions. But she can't outrun Peony for long, as hours later she finds her, dead on the floor of Gravesdown Hall, a ruby-hilted dagger plunged into her back.  But who killed the mysterious fortune teller and why? And can Frances' library of evidence help Annie solve the case? How to Seal Your Own Fate is by Kristen Perrin.

The Bureau is by Eoin McNamee. Lorraine would say afterwards that she was smitten straight off with Paddy Farrell. You could tell that he was occupying the room in a different way, he found the spaces that fitted him. She was the kind of girl the papers called vivacious, always a bit of dazzle to her. Could she not see there was death about him? Could he not see there was death about her? Paddy worked the border, a place of road closures, hijackings, sudden death. Everything bootleg and tawdry, nobody is saying that the law is paid off but it is. This is strange terrain, unsolid, ghosted through. There's illicit cash coming across the border and Brendan's backstreet Bureau de Change is the place to launder it. Brendan knows the rogue lawyers, the nerve shot policemen, the alcoholic judges and he doesn't care about getting caught. For the Bureau crew getting caught is only the start of the game. Paddy and his associates were a ragged band and honourless and their worth to themselves was measured in thievery and fraud. But Lorraine was not a girl to be treated lightly. She's cast as a minx, a criminal's moll but she's bought a shotgun. And she's bought a grave.

April 2025

Fortress of Evil is by Javier Cercas. A father's worst nightmare - Melchor Marín's teenage daughter has disappeared. Years have passed since Melchor took revenge for his mother's murder and at last found peace with his daughter Cosette in the sleepy backwater of Terra Alta. But their idyll is shattered when one day Cosette, now seventeen, discovers that her father has been concealing the truth of her mother's death- that she was killed in a hit-and-run "accident" intended to scare Melchor off a case. Angry and betrayed, Cosette disappears to Mallorca with her friend Elisa. And that's the last Melchor hears of her. His texts and calls go unanswered, and when she returns alone, Elisa can only say Cosette needed "space to think".  Now the former policeman has no choice but to travel to Port de Pollença, where his daughter was last seen alive, and enter the dark, looking-glass world of Swedish-American billionaire Rafael Mattson.

May 2025

You Can’t Escape the Past is by Anna Smith. The future is looking bright for Billie Carlson. With her child safely home and a new relationship on the horizon, she hasn't felt so settled in years. But when Billie takes on a new client, Elizabeth Fletcher, it's clear trouble is imminent. Elizabeth has killed a man in self-defence. She met him in a bar but he'd turned aggressive, attacking Elizabeth in the middle of the night when she caught him going through her husband's desk drawers. Refusing to go to the police for fear her husband will find out, Elizabeth wants Billie to work out who he was - and what secrets he was looking for. Can Billie help Elizabeth, or is she in way over her head?

The Cliffhanger is by Emily Freud. You think you know how this ends. Think again. Stray too close to the edge... New York-based writers Felix and Emma have it all. As the husband and wife team behind the bestselling Morgan Savage thrillers, their meteoric rise to global literary fame seemed unstoppable. Until Felix messed up. And someone is going to get hurt. Now, the couple has been exiled to the south of France. Their sentence: a long, hot summer to cure their writers' block - and save their marriage.  But as tensions rise beneath the sweltering sun, Felix and Emma become trapped in a deathly plot of their own making....

Victim or murderer . . .  Can she discover the truth? On a misty autumn afternoon, a woman covered in blood clutching a baseball bat walks silently into a London police station. The two officers assigned to her case are DI Leah Hutch and DS Benjamin Randle. But the woman refuses to speak. She is not injured and the blood on the bat is not hers. What has she done? Is she the victim or the perpetrator? As Leah and Randle start their inquiry, a man is found battered to death in a nearby park. Journalist Odie Reid receives a tip off and is determined to solve the case first, trying to link this death to the woman held in custody. Leah and Odie have history and very quickly their cat and mouse game becomes personal, leading them both to the very darkest corners of their pasts. Innocent Guilt is by Remi Kone. 

The Devil's Playbook is by Markus Heitz. Retired gambler Tadeus Boch has just come into possession of a mysterious playing card, apparently from a very rare eighteenth-century deck. He immediately becomes obsessed with tracking down the entire set of cards, rumored to be the one pack in the world for the legendary game Supérieur . . . and said to be created by the Devil himself. But Boch is not the only person searching for the missing cards. And the more he learns about the game, the more dangerous the chase becomes. It's not long before Boch realises he's playing for the highest stakes he's ever wagered: nothing less than his own life.

June 2025

So Happy Together is by Olivia Worley.Jane and Colin are soulmates. He just doesn't know it yet. For twenty-four-year-old Jane, finding love in New York City is even harder than making it as a playwright. So, when Jane meets Colin, a sweet software engineer, she can't believe her luck: they're perfect for each other. Even when Colin breaks off their blooming relationship after six dates, Jane is certain that this is just a stumbling block. She'll get him back. She knows she will. That is, until Colin starts dating Zoe, a perfect, luminous, up-and-coming Brooklyn artist. Even worse, she's actually kind of nice. But Zoe doesn't have what it takes to love Colin. She'd never stay with him through thick and thin. All Jane has to do is prove it, and she and Colin will be so happy together. But when Jane sneaks into Colin's apartment, she makes a shocking discovery - one that will ensnare them all in a complicated web of lies, secrets, and murder.

Bruno Courrѐges is chief of police of the lovely Dordogne town of St Denis with a remit that covers the beautiful valley of the river Vézѐre. One autumn morning he comes across an abandoned car parked near a local beauty spot. Inside is a dead woman, Monique, an apparent suicide resulting from depression. But there are circumstances surrounding the death that raise Bruno's suspicions, particularly when disputes arise surrounding her Will. At the same time, Bruno makes the mistake of interfering in a local marital dispute. Deputy mayor Xavier has been playing away and finds himself evicted from the family home. Old controversies about deer culls take on new life and then a second campaign begins, stating that Bruno is less of a village copper and more of a secret policeman, whose main job is working for French intelligence. Some of the ammunition for this attack, Bruno learns, comes from Xavier, who sees this as a way to topple Bruno and the mayor and succeed to the mayor's job himself. Suddenly Bruno's shiny reputation is looking a little tarnished as he battles to save his name and answer the questions surrounding Monique's suicide. An Enemy in the Village is by Martin Walker.

The Woman Who Laughed is by Simon Mason. In the first months of 2020 there was a spate of murders of Black sex workers in northern cities. One of them was Ella Bailey, last seen talking to a punter in an alley in Sheffield city centre, and although no trace of her was ever found, the punter, Michael Godley, soon confessed to all three murders. Five years later, as another sex worker is murdered in the same district, the bag Ella had been carrying with her reappears, hanging on the door handles of a café, and a local vagrant claims to have seen Ella sitting on a bench in a churchyard near the site of the murder. South Yorkshire Police call in the Finder. So begins a search that takes him back to the strange days of the pandemic, to talk to those who knew Ella best, such as her wayward girlfriend 'Loz', abusive boyfriend Caine Poynton-Smith and respectable foster-parents still struggling to come to terms with Ella's life. How did their intelligent, strong-willed daughter - bright student and national schoolgirl athletics champion - end up in that alley? Is Ella really still alive? If so, why has she reappeared now? And does she realise the danger she is in?

Forthcoming Books from Quercus Books (Incl Riverrun and MacLehose Press

January 2024

A long, hot summer in Wiltshire is broken by a sudden downpour. Flash floods bring something sinister to the surface - a human skeleton. When forensic testing matches the bones to a man named Lee Geary, reported missing nine years earlier, the case is passed to DI Matt Lockyer. Geary was a known drug user, so it could be a simple case of misadventure, but Lockyer isn't so sure. Geary was a townie, and had learning disabilities, so what was he doing out on the Plain all alone? Lockyer soon learns that the year he disappeared, Geary was questioned in relation to another crime - the murder of a young woman named Holly Gilbert. With the help of DC Gemma Broad, Lockyer begins to dig deeper, and discovers that two other persons of interest in the Holly Gilbert case have also either died or disappeared in the intervening years. A coincidence? Or a string of murders that has gone undetected for nearly a decade...? Laying out the Bones is by Kate Webb.

The Last Word is by Elly Griffiths. Natalka and Edwin, whom we met in The Postscript Murders, are running a detective agency in Shoreham, Sussex. Despite a steady stream of minor cases, Natalka is frustrated, longing for a big juicy case such as murder to come the agency's way. Natalka is now living with dreamer, Benedict. But her Ukrainian mother Valentyna has joined them from her war-torn country and three's a crowd. It's annoying to have Valentyna in the tiny flat, cooking borscht and cleaning things that are already clean. To add to Natalka's irritation,Benedict and her mother get on brilliantly. Then a murder case turns up. Local writer, Melody Chambers, is found dead and her family are convinced it is murder. Edwin, a big fan of the obit pages, thinks there's a link to the writer of Melody's obituary who pre-deceased his subject. The trail leads Benedict and Edwin to a slightly sinister writers' retreat. When another writer is found dead, Edwin thinks that the clue lies in the words. Seeking professional help, the amateur investigators turn to their friend, detective Harbinder Kaur, to find that they have stumbled on a plot that is stranger than fiction.

Oxford, city of rich and poor, where the homeless camp out in the shadows of the gorgeous buildings and monuments. A city of lost things - and buried crimes.  At three o'clock in the morning, Emergency Services receives a call. 'This is Zara Fanshawe. Always lost and never found.' An hour later, the wayward celebrity's Rolls Royce Phantom is found abandoned in dingy Becket Street. The paparazzi go wild.  For some reason, news of Zara's disappearance prompts homeless woman Lena Wójcik to search the camps, nervously, for the bad-tempered vagrant known as 'Waitrose', a familiar sight in Oxford pushing his trolley of possessions. But he's nowhere to be found either.  Who will lead the investigation and cope with the media frenzy? Suave, prize-winning, Oxford-educated DI Ray Wilkins is passed over in favour of his partner, gobby, trailer-park educated DI Ryan Wilkins (no relation). You wouldn't think Ray would be happy. He isn't. You wouldn't think Ryan would be any good at national press presentations. He isn't. And when legendary cop Chester Lynch takes a shine to Ray - and takes against Ryan - things are only going to get even messier. Lost and Never Found is by Simon Mason.

Farewell Dinner for a Spy is by Edward Wilson. 1949: William Catesby returns to London in disgrace, accused of murdering a 'double-dipper' the Americans believed to be one of their own. His left-wing sympathies have him singled out as a traitor. Henry Bone throws him a lifeline, sending him to Marseille, ostensibly to report on dockers' strikes and keep tabs on the errant wife of a British diplomat. But there's a catch. For his cover story, he's demobbed from the service and tricked out as a writer researching a book on the Resistance. In Marseille, Catesby is caught in a deadly vice between the CIA and the mafia, who are colluding to fuel the war in Indochina. Swept eastwards to Laos himself, he remains uncertain of the true purpose behind his mission, though he has his suspicions: Bone has murder on his mind, and the target is a former comrade from Catesby's SOE days. The question is, which one.

February 2024

Last Seen is by Anna Smith. Life has changed for Private Investigator Billie Carlson. After years of chasing down every lead possible, she's finally found her son, Lucas, and brought him safely home to Glasgow. One afternoon, Billie gets a call from an unknown number. The man on the end of the phone refuses to tell her his name, but he explains that his brother, Omar, is being held in prison after stabbing two men outside a block of flats. He wants Billie to investigate what happened that night and find out any information that might help Omar. Reluctantly, Billie takes on the case. But as she starts to untangle what happened that night, she can't shake the feeling that she's being watched. With Lucas depending on her, Billie is determined to avoid any dangerous encounters. But trouble seems to have a way of tracking her down....

Some people think foxes go around collecting qi, or life force, but nothing could be further than the truth. We are living creatures, just like you, only usually better looking. Manchuria, 1908: A young woman is found frozen in the snow. Her death is clouded by rumours of foxes, believed to lure people into peril by transforming into beautiful women and men. Bao, a detective with a reputation for sniffing out the truth, is hired to uncover the dead woman's identity. Since childhood, Bao has been intrigued by the fox gods, yet they've remained tantalizingly out of reach. Until, perhaps, now. Snow is a creature of many secrets, but most of all, she's a mother seeking vengeance. Hunting a murderer, the trail will take her from northern China to Japan, with Bao following doggedly behind. And as their paths draw ever closer together, both Snow and Bao will encounter old friends and new foes, even as more deaths occur.  The Fox Wife is by Yangsze Choo.

The Winter Visitor is by James Henry. Essex, February, 1991. The weather is biting cold. Everyone would rather be somewhere warmer, which is why it's a big surprise when a wanted drug smuggler, Bruce Hopkins, risks a return to his old haunts in Colchester after a decade long exile on the Costa del Sol. Lured back by a letter from the wife Hopkins left behind, no one is more surprised than him when he finds himself abducted and stripped bare only to be sent to a watery grave in the boot of a stolen Ford Sierra. The police wonder if it could be retaliation from a Spanish gang, sending a warning to their English counterparts? DS Daniel Kenton is teamed up with the unorthodox DS Brazier to investigate a crime wave which takes in not only the murder of an expat dope smuggler, but a sophisticated arson attack on a Norman church and the unexpected suicide of an ageing florist. Could there possibly be a thread that connects them?

Red Menace is by Joe Thomas. Live Aid, July 1985. The great and the good of the music scene converge to save the world. But the TV glitz cannot disguise ugly truths about Thatcher's Britain. Jon Davies and Suzi Scialfa have moved on since the inquest into the death of Colin Roach, but they're about to be drawn back into the struggle - Jon by his restless curiosity and Suzi by the reappearance of DC Patrick Noble. Noble's other asset, the salaried spycop Parker, is a pawn in a game he only dimly comprehends. First, he's ordered to infiltrate the Broadwater Farm Estate in Tottenham; next will come Wapping, ground zero of a plot to smash the print unions. But who is Noble working for, and how far can he be trusted? The Iron Lady is reforging the nation, and London with it. Right to Buy may secure her votes, but who really stands to benefit? Corruption is endemic and the gap between rich and poor grows wider by the day. Insurrection seems imminent - all that's needed is a spark.

March 2024

How to Solve Your Own Murder is by Kristen Perrin. Frances always said she'd be murdered... She was right. In 1965, seventeen-year-old Frances Adams was told by a fortune teller that one day she'd be murdered. Frances spent the next sixty years trying to prevent the crime that would be her eventual demise. Of course, no one took her seriously - until she was dead. For Frances, being the village busybody was a form of insurance. She'd spent a lifetime compiling dirt on every person she met, just in case they might turn out to be her killer. In the heart of her sprawling country estate lies an eccentric library of detective work, where the right person could step in and use her findings to solve her murder. When her great-niece Annie arrives from London and discovers that Frances' worst fear has come true, Annie is thrust into her great-aunt's last act of revenge against her sceptical friends and family. Frances' will stipulates that the person who solves her murder will inherit her millions. Can Annie unravel the mystery and find justice for Frances, or will digging up the past lead her into the path of the killer?

The Silver Bone is by Andrey Kurkov. Kyiv, 1919. The Soviets control the city, but White armies menace them from the West. No man trusts his neighbour and any spark of resistance may ignite into open rebellion. When Samson Kolechko's father is murdered, his last act is to save his son from a falling Cossack sabre. Deprived of his right ear instead of his head, Samson is left an orphan, with only his father's collection of abacuses for company. Until, that is, his flat is requisitioned by two Red Army soldiers, whose secret plans Samson is somehow able to overhear with uncanny clarity. Eager to thwart them, he stumbles into a world of murder and intrigue that will either be the making of him - or finish what the Cossack started. Inflected with Kurkov's signature humour and magical realism, The Silver Bone takes inspiration from the real life archives of crime enforcement agencies in Kyiv, crafting a propulsive narrative that bursts to life with rich historical detail.

April 2024

Her Last Summer is by Emily Freud. No body. No crime? Twenty years ago, Mari vanished while backpacking through Thailand with her boyfriend, Luke. He was accused of murder, but has always insisted he's innocent. Besides, her body was never found. Now, he's finally ready to talk. And filmmaker Cassidy Chambers wants to be the one to uncover what really happened, back then, in the dark of the jungle. But as she delves deeper into the past, Cassidy begins to fear what lies ahead, and the secrets buried along the way.

May 2024

The Wild Swimmers is by William Shaw. The body of a local woman is found washed up on the Folkstone shoreline. Cupidi must find the missing link between a group of wild swimmers, an online dating profile and a slippery killer who feels remarkably close to home. In the latest instalment of the D S Cupidi series low tide reveals a mysterious crime.

Between Two Worlds is by Olivier Norek. Undercover police officer Adam Sirkis needs to flee Syria. He knows it's a risk and he's ready for it. First, he sends his wife and daughter to Libya, where they will find boat heading for the Italian coast. Meanwhile, Adam himself winds up in France in the

Calais Jungle, the infamous camp for migrants awaiting passage to the UK. Bastien Miller, a police lieutenant freshly transferred to the Calais police force, arrives at about the same time as Adam. His wife is depressed and his teenage daughter isn't exactly happy with the move. When a murder occurs in the Jungle, Adam and Bastien team up to get to the bottom of it. Between Two Worlds is one of these vital books that illuminate an impossible political and humanitarian situation without sugar-coating it in any way.

June 2024

The Man in Black and Other Stories is by Elly Griffiths. Here are bite-sized tales to please and entertain every thriller taste as well as all Elly Griffiths' fans. There are ghost stories and mini cosy mysteries; tales of psychological suspense and poignant vignettes of love and loss. There's a creepy horror story to make you shiver and a tale narrated by Flint, Ruth Galloway's cat, to make you smile. These stories illustrate the breadth and variety of Elly Griffiths' talent. Even the darkest of them is leavened with light touches of humour. 

The long arm of history reaches into the present in Bruno's latest case when three sets of bones are discovered, buried deep in the woods outside the Dordogne town of St Denis. It appears that the remains have lain there since World War 2. Bruno must investigate who the bones belong to and whether their burial amounts to a war crime. Bruno has other concerns too. After weeks of heavy autumn rain, the normally tranquil Dordogne river has risen to record levels, compromising the upriver dams that control the Vezere that flows through St Denis, bringing the threat of a devastating flood. As ever, Bruno must rely on his wits, tenacity and people skills to ensure that past wrongs don't result in present violence, and to keep his little town and its inhabitants safe from harm. A Grave in the Woods is by Martin Walker. 

The Trial is by Jo Spain. 2014, Dublin: at St Edmunds, an elite college on the outskirts of the city, twenty-year-old medical student Theo gets up one morning, leaving behind his sleeping girlfriend, Dani, and his studies - never to be seen again. With too many unanswered questions, Dani simply can't accept Theo's disappearance and reports him missing, even though no one else seems concerned, including Theo's father. Ten years later, Dani returns to the college as a history professor. With her mother suffering from severe dementia, and her past at St Edmunds still haunting her, she's trying for a new start. But not all is as it seems behind the cloistered college walls - meanwhile, Dani is hiding secrets of her own.

The White Circle is by Oliver Bottini and is the final book in the Black Forest Investigations series. Louise Bonì, Chief Inspector of the Freiburg criminal police, gets intelligence from an informer that two guns have been bought from a Russian criminal network. Desperate to prevent a fatal act of violence, Bonì is swift to investigate. Before long she identifies the vehicle used to collect the weapons, but the car's owner has a watertight alibi. The man driving that night was Ricky Janisch, a neo-Nazi and member of the extreme right-wing group, the Southwest Brigade. Bonì and her team put Janisch under surveillance, and identify others belonging to the extreme right. The further they probe, the more shocking their discoveries. Could this be part of a much more powerful neo-Nazi network which will stop at nothing? And how will they prevent an attack when the perpetrators are always a step ahead and they don't know the target? By the time Bonì pinpoints the victim, it may already be too late . . .

July 2024

Nordland. A region in the Norwegian Arctic; a remote valley that stretches from the sea up to the mountains and the glacier of the Blue Man. It is May. In Nordland it's a time of spring and school-leavers' celebrations - until Daniel, a popular teenage boy, goes missing. Conflicting stories circulate among his friends, of parties and wild behaviour.  As the search for Daniel widens, the police open a disused mine in the mountains. They find human remains, but this body has been there for decades, its identity a mystery. The story is told through characters impacted by these events: misanthropic Svea, whose long life in the area stretches back to the heyday of the mines, and beyond. She has cut all ties with her family, except for her granddaughter, Elin, a young misfit. Elin and her friend Benny, both impacted by Daniel while alive, become entangled in the hunt for answers, while Svea has deep, dark secrets of her own. The Long Water is by Stef Penney.