Helene Tursten Books

It’s May and the snow has hardly melted in Göteborg, Sweden, but things are heating up quickly for Detective Inspector Irene Huss in the Violent Crimes Unit. The body of a teenage girl is found in the woods, naked and horrifically scarred. Then there’s the mummified body that is discovered bricked up in a chimney on a demolition site, not to mention the city’s ongoing problem with gang violence. With the sudden influx of cases and one detective out on maternity leave, everyone is stretched thin. To make matters worse, Irene feels more than a little intimidated by the new superintendent, Efva Thylqvist, who uses her sex appeal and smooth talking to bend the predominately male staff to her will. Then a second young girl is found, wearing what appears to be the other half of the sexy lingerie set recovered near the first body. Fearing the two cases are linked and that the killer may strike again, Irene and her colleagues embark on a desperate hunt that takes them deep into a shadowy world of anonymous online predators and insecure teenage girls on a deadly quest for affirmation.

Maud is an irascible 88-year-old Swedish woman with no family, no friends, and... no qualms about a little murder. This funny, irreverent story collection by Helene Tursten, author of the Irene Huss investigations, features two-never-before translated stories that will keep you laughing all the way to the retirement home. Ever since her darling father's untimely death when she was only eighteen, Maud has lived in the family's spacious apartment in downtown Gothenburg rent-free, thanks to a minor clause in a hastily negotiated contract. That was how Maud learned that good things can come from tragedy. Now in her late eighties, Maud contents herself with traveling the world and surfing the net from the comfort of her father's ancient armchair. It's a solitary existence, and she likes it that way. Over the course of her adventures—or misadventures—this little bold lady will handle a crisis with a local celebrity who has her eyes on Maud's apartment, foil the engagement of her long-ago lover, and dispose of some pesky neighbors. But when the local authorities are called to investigate a dead body found in Maud's apartment, will Maud finally become a suspect?

Don’t let her age fool you. Maud may be nearly ninety, but if you cross her, this elderly lady is more sinister than sweet. Just when things have finally cooled down for 88-year-old Maud after the disturbing discovery of a dead body in her apartment in Gothenburg, a couple of detectives return to her doorstep. Though Maud dodges their questions with the skill of an Olympic gymnast a fifth of her age, she wonders if suspicion has fallen on her, little old lady that she is. The truth is, ever since Maud was a girl, death has seemed to follow her. In these six interlocking stories, memories of unfortunate incidents from Maud’s past keep bubbling to the surface. Meanwhile, certain Problems in the present require immediate attention. Luckily, Maud is no stranger to taking matters into her own hands . . . even if it means she has to get a little blood on them in the process. *Includes cookie recipes*

In this final installment of the internationally bestselling Irene Huss investigations, the Organized Crimes Unit pairs with the Violent Crimes Unit to help defuse the escalating tension between rival gangs in Göteborg, Sweden. But could there be a mole on the force who is thwarting their efforts? The gang warfare that has been brewing in Göteborg is about to explode. A member of a notorious biker gang has been set on fire—alive. Even in a culture where ritual killings are common, this brutal assault attracts the attention of both Irene’s unit and the Organized Crimes Unit. Anticipating a counterattack, the two units team up to patrol the lavish party of a rival gang, but that doesn’t stop another murder from occurring just outside the event hall. And that’s not the only thing going up in flames. Someone has planted a bomb under Irene’s husband’s car. Fearing for her family’s safety, Irene sends her husband and daughters into hiding and takes up residence at a colleague’s apartment. Still, she can’t shake the feeling that she is being stalked. Somehow, the gangs are always one step ahead of the police. Someone is leaking information. But who? Irene’s life depends on discovering the answer.

Part of a human torso washes up on a beach near Göteborg, Sweden. It is so mutilated that gender is only established by DNA testing. A similar crime, now several years old, remains unsolved in Denmark. Detective Inspector Irene Huss is dispatched to Copenhagen to liaise with police. Then a third corpse is discovered. This time it’s identified. It is a girl Detective Huss knew; she had been asked by the girl’s mother to locate her missing daughter. A fourth victim, the son of a woman heading the Copenhagen crime squad, is also known to Huss. She fears the killer is tracking her, killing people with whom she is connected. There is even a chilling suggestion that he or she is one of her colleagues. Helene Tursten has been compared to P.D. James in her native Sweden. Her Irene Huss mysteries have been highly praised. She lives in Göteborg, where she was born in 1954.

A speeding BMW leaves a dead pedestrian in its wake and leads police to the corpse of a young girl in a cellar. Detective Inspector Irene Huss's ensuing investigation draws her into the chilling world of sex trafficking. Göteborg, Sweden: The high-speed chase of a stolen BMW takes a chilling turn when the two police officers involved witness a gruesome hit-and-run. When they finally recover the abandoned vehicle, search dogs are unable to trace the thieves, but they do uncover an entirely different horror: the half-naked corpse of a young girl in a nearby root cellar. As Detective Inspector Irene Huss and her colleagues struggle to put the pieces together, they discover the man whose car was stolen—a retired police officer—is none other than the victim in the hit-and-run. Could it be a strange coincidence? Or is something larger at play? Meanwhile, the hunt for the girl’s killer leads Irene into the dark world of sex trafficking. An international criminal has arrived in Göteborg, and he’ll stop at nothing to expand his sinister operation.

A woman is found dead in a cemetery, strangled and covered in plastic. Just a few days before her death, the victim had received a flower, an unintelligible note, and a photograph of herself. Detective Inspector Irene Huss and her colleagues on the Goteborg police force have neither clue nor motive to track in the case, and when similar murders follow, their search for the killer becomes increasingly desperate.

Detective Inspector Irene Huss hasn’t seen Sophie Malmborg for over fifteen years, but she’s still haunted by the strange young ballerina’s role in the fire that killed her stepfather. Why had she refused to speak to Irene and the other case workers? Could an eleven-year-old—even one as disturbed and aloof as Sophie—truly be capable of setting her own house on fire? Irene’s questions resurface when Sophie, now a young adult, disappears, and the charred remains of a dancer are found in an abandoned warehouse. Irene has a startling realization that could shed light on the case that has been lingering in the back of her mind since the beginning of her career.

The fourth investigation in the nationally bestselling Swedish detective series When one of his teachers fails to show up for work, a high school principal calls his friend on the Göteborg police force. To Detective Inspector Irene Huss’s surprise, her boss takes the complaint seriously, even bringing her with him to a remote cottage in southern Sweden to investigate. There they discover the body of the teacher in question, victim of a rifle shot to the head. When they visit his parents to break the news, they find the couple dead in their bed, each shot between the eyes. The family’s sole surviving member, their daughter in London, is too grief-stricken for questioning. A swath of suspects arises as Irene investigates, but she has a hunch the answers to this case lie in England.

Soho’s perennially popular Swedish crime series featuring Detective Inspector Irene Huss—jiujitsu champion, mother of teenage twin girls, and investigator on Göteborg Murder Squad—is back! Three men have been shot in one of Göteborg's most fashionable neighborhoods, sending Irene Huss and her colleagues on a goose chase through a tony world of expensive cars and fancy homes. All three victims seem to be tied to one person, the glamorous dot-com darling Sanna Kaegler-Ceder, but Sanna isn’t talking, even when her own life seems to be at stake.