Echoes from the Dead

In this “haunting and lyrical” (The Guardian) Nordic noir thriller, a runaway bestseller in Sweden, a woman haunted by her son’s disappearance is plunged into a mystery that reaches well beyond her own haunting tragedy—into the shadows cast by a killer.

“A splashy debut . . . with some mind-bending twists near the end.”—Houston Chronicle

WINNER OF THE CRIME WRITERS’ ASSOCIATION’S JOHN CREASEY MEMORIAL AWARD

On a gray September day, on an island off the coast of Sweden, a little boy ventured out of his backyard, walked out into the fog, and vanished.

When Julia Davidsson’s son, Jens, disappeared, there were no answers—only a fruitless search by police and volunteers on the remote island of Öland. Now, twenty years later, Julia’s father has a received a package in the mail. In it, lovingly wrapped, is one of Jens’ sandals—sandals Julia put on her son’s feet that very last morning. Suddenly Julia, who had spent two decades in paralyzing grief, has no choice but to return—to the island she hoped she’d left behind forever, and to her estranged father, who always refused to believe that Jens was dead. With only a handful of clues, the two begin questioning islanders who were present the day Jens vanished, wakening long-slumbering suspicions and making a shocking connection to Öland’s most notorious murder case: the killing spree of a wealthy young man who fled the island and died years before Jens was even born.

Soon Julia finds herself facing truths she never imagined—about what really happened on that September day twenty years ago, about who may have crossed paths with little Jens in the fog, and how a child could truly vanish without a trace . . . until now.