Sarah Hollister

A Nordic Thriller With a career that is spiraling out of control and a nasty drug habit that has taken her to rock bottom, NYC detective Veronika Brand is looking for a way out. When a call from Sweden interrupts her personal chaos, the foreign tongue of her distant Swedish relatives pulls her across the Atlantic with the lure of adventure and escape. But what she finds is far from the idyllic picture her grandmother painted. Instead of long languid summers basking in the midnight sun, she unearths secrets long since buried in the frozen ground. In Krister Hammar, a local Sami land rights lawyer, she thinks she has found a kindred spirit. But when they stumble upon a brutal murder scene in a manor house owned by the rivals of her family, she starts questioning his truth. She finds herself being moved like a chess piece between the desolate region of Härjedalen in the north and the steely-cold streets of Stockholm, scrambling to find the links between her family history, a trail of missing Roma girls, and a series of vicious murders. In unfamiliar territory on the wrong side of the law, Veronika has her sights set only on the beast that preys on the wicked. Will she be able to see past the lure of the northern lights to the dark secrets that threaten to destroy her? Newest on the Nordic Noir scene is the thriller This Land is No Stranger, following the tradition of Hennik Mankell, Jo Nesbo, and Sjöwall & Wahlöö, through exploring the societal issues of the Nordics through the lens of suspense fiction. The female protagonist, Veronika Brand, is an American detective visiting Sweden for family reasons, only to see things spiral out of control with the discovery of a dead body. This murder mystery gives the reader everything they expect from a Scanoir classic, including gloomy weather, an old Saab, and quirky Scandinavian habits.