When friends and family start asking you about the legal system and police work, you know your research obsession has officially reached a whole new level.
When I first began writing, research was the part I found most intimidating. But also, the most exciting. I used to pore over my fellow crime writers’ books, making notes on the sections that dealt with police work, so that I could later check whether they were accurate or not. When I started writing my first novel, I realised that facts are not the most important thing in a crime novel. The average reader does not know exactly how a DNA test is carried out, or what post-mortem fluid looks like. Or perhaps they do – those who, like me, binge on true crime series and podcasts – but most people do not read crime fiction as if it were a textbook. That would drain the story of its tension.
Even so, it became something of a calling for me to try to recreate the work of police officers and forensic pathologists as accurately as possible. It helped, of course, that I already had a somewhat unhealthy fascination with emergency services long before I started writing, but taking the step of actually approaching someone and asking for an interview felt enormous. Just the thought of saying, “Hello, my name is Lina Areklew and I want to be a writer – could I interview you?” was enough to make me blush.
Through my mother, however, I was put in touch with an acquaintance of an acquaintance who worked as a police officer in Örnsköldsvik. He had been involved in the investigation of one of the most high-profile murder cases in the county’s history: a sixteen-year-old girl who disappeared after getting off the bus at the wrong stop. When she vanished, she was about the same age as I was at the time. She was later found raped and murdered in a wooded area not far from where she had disappeared. The perpetrator was convicted in the district court but acquitted on appeal. It would take more than twenty- five years before DNA technology finally caught up, allowing the case to be reopened and the man to be convicted of murder.
But I knew none of this when I walked into the police station with my dictaphone Dictaphone in hand. I had asked was expecting to be granted for half an hour to ask a few questions about what it was like to work as a murder investigator and to have a look around the station. I walked out six hours later, dizzy and overwhelmed by everything I had learned. Above all, I was more motivated than ever to write a crime novel that genuinely reflected the reality of police work.
I buried myself in research, made more contacts and kept digging. I quickly realised that many – I would say all – people who work within the justice system are immensely proud of what they do. Many want to share their experiences. With the rise of social media, communication became easier, and research evolved into new friendships.
This may sound insensitive, but one of the most memorable conversations I have ever had took place over dinner with a forensic pathologist. As we ate Carpaccio, we discussed what a person’s skin looks like after repeated stab wounds. I’m not sure the people sitting next to us in the restaurant found the conversation quite as engaging.
There have also been many occasions when research has been heavy and difficult. My main character, Fredrik Fröding, survived the horrific sinking of the MS Estonia but lost his entire family in the process. His fate is constantly present throughout my books, and it was extremely important to me to portray what happened that night – when so many people lost their lives in Sweden’s worst ferry disaster – as accurately as possible. I ordered the government accident report, devoured every book written about the catastrophe, and watched deeply disturbing dive footage from the wreck, filmed just weeks after the sinking.
I have always tried to approach that aspect of my writing with as much respect as possible. This is a wound in the Swedish collective soul, and not something one should trample on in order to create entertainment in the form of crime fiction . I believe I have succeeded in that. The inclusion of the disaster in my books has come up in discussion at many In all the appearances at writing events, and I have made where this has been discussed, no one has ever come up to me to say they felt hurt by my portrayal. Quite the opposite.
My research has taken me to some truly extraordinary places and introduced me to remarkable people. In addition to the most obvious locations – libraries and police stations – I have trudged through metre-deep snow to visit fictional murder sites, test-driven boat routes, harassed my teenage children with embarrassing questions, visited people’s homes out on island of Ulvön, toured a forensic station , gone caving, and while working on my new series, due to be released in autumn 2026, I spent a week working at a funeral home. That is something I will carry with me for the rest of my life.
My fascination with death has always meant that I feel no fear of it as a phenomenon, and it was deeply moving to meet people who, just like those within the justice system, showed such immense professional pride. I was allowed into a world where respect was one of the guiding principles. I saw the other side of the spectacular murders we writers so casually describe. I can honestly say that if I were not an author, funeral director would be the profession I would choose.
Over the years though, I have also learned a great deal about writing as a craft. As mentioned, it is impossible to portray everything exactly as it is in real life. That would be make some tedious reading. But I hope that through thorough research I have managed to depict the justice system in a way that makes the people who work within it feel genuine and human. That being said, no one is flawless. I have stumbled at times and have no doubt described both events and procedures in ways that have made some police officer somewhere clench their fists in their pockets .
Still, I can proudly say that the only time a reader has ever stopped me in the street wanting to have a serious conversation about my research was regarding the colour of the fence outside his house, as described in one of my books. I had written that it was white, when in fact it was green.
That, I can live with.
In The Dark by Lina Areklaw (Canelo Crime)
A four-year-old girl has disappeared from her home. And then more family members vanish. Detective Sofia Hjortn is in a race against time to find them as she and her colleagues desperately search a snow-covered rnskldsvik. Meanwhile, Sofia has other problems to deal with. Heavily pregnant and balancing work and a difficult relationship with her boyfriend, she is at breaking point. Can she make it to the light at the end of the tunnel?
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