Hellfire

'He'd just learnt to walk,’ she said. ‘He was sitting playing on his blanket, then all of a sudden he was gone.’ A 16-month-old boy is found drowned in a pond right by his home. Chief Inspector Sejer is called to the scene, as there is something troubling about the mother’s story. As even her own family turns against her, Sejer is determined to get to the truth.

Eva is walking by the river one afternoon when a body floats to the surface of the icy water. She tells her daughter to wait patiently while she calls the police, but when she reaches the phone box Eva dials another number altogether. The dead man, Egil, has been missing for months, and it doesn't take long for Inspector Sejer and his team to establish that he was the victim of a very violent killer. But the trail has gone cold.

One mild summer evening Lily and her husband are enjoying a meal while their baby daughter sleeps peacefully in her pram beneath a maple tree. But when Lily steps outside she is paralysed with terror. The child is bathed in blood. Inspector Sejer is called to the hospital to meet the family. Mercifully, the baby is unharmed, but her parents are deeply shaken, and Sejer spends the evening trying to comprehend why anyone would carry out such a sinister prank.

This was meant to be the perfect trip. The northern lights. A press launch on a luxury cruise ship. A chance for travel journalist Lo Blackwood to recover from a traumatic break-in that has left her on the verge of collapse and to work out what she wants from her relationship. Except things don't go as planned. Woken in the night by screams, Lo rushes to her window to see a body thrown overboard from the next-door cabin. But the records show that no one ever checked in to that cabin, and no passengers are missing from the boat.

Riktor doesn’t like the way the policeman comes straight into the house without knocking. He doesn’t like the arrogant way he observes his home. The policeman doesn’t tell him why he’s there, and Riktor doesn’t ask. Because he knows he’s guilty of a terrible crime. But it turns out that the policeman isn’t looking for a missing person. He is accusing Riktor of something totally unexpected. Riktor doesn’t have a clear conscience, but this is a crime he certainly didn’t commit.