Trouble
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3.8 • 13 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
The third in the Hella Mauzer mystery series. Set in Finland, early summer 1953. Hella Mauzer the first-ever woman Inspector in the Helsinki Homicide Unit has been fired and is now a reluctant private investigator.
Hella has been asked by the police to do a background check on Johannes Heikkinen, a senior member of the Finnish secret services. Heikkinen has a complicated past: a child dead just weeks after birth and a wife who died in the fire that destroyed their house a few years later. Background checks are not exactly the type of job Hella was hoping for, but she accepts it on the condition that she is given access to the files concerning the roadside death of her father in 1942. Colonel Mauzer, his wife and other family members were killed by a truck in a hit and run incident. An accident, file closed, they say. But not for Hella, whose unwelcome investigation leads to some who would prefer to see her stopped dead in her tracks.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Set in 1953, Ivar's stellar third mystery featuring Hella Mauzer (after 2020's Deep as Death) finds Hella working as a PI after losing her job as the first-ever woman inspector in the Helsinki Homicide Unit. She's surprised to hear from her former boss, Police Chief Jokela, who asks her to meet him at headquarters after hours when few people would be around. The reason for that timing becomes clear once Jokela specifies the sensitive help that he's seeking—a background check on Johannes Heikkinen, a member of SUPO, the Finnish secret service, a candidate to become the head of homicide. Hella agrees on the condition that she's given unfettered access to the files on the 1942 deaths of her parents, sister, and nephew, who were killed by an unidentified hit-and-run truck driver. From the prologue, readers know that Colonel Mauzer and his family were deliberately targeted and he recognized the driver just before being fatally struck. Hella pursues that cold case as well as disturbing discoveries from her look into Heikkinen's history. Ivar balances the complex plotlines perfectly. Fans of multifaceted female leads will be riveted.
