THE AWARD-WINNING INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER

One Town. Two Crimes. Twenty years of silence.

“Far and away my favorite Scandinavian crime writer.”—Fredrik Backman

A Publishers Weekly Most Anticipated Mystery and Thriller of the Fall

Two decades after an unsolved murder in a working-class town, another body turns up, ripping apart friendships and community—a captivating mystery and graceful investigation of brotherhood and family by a renowned criminologist

Winner of the three biggest prizes in Scandinavian crime writing: Best Swedish Crime Novel • The Glass Key Award for Best Scandinavian Crime Novel • Danish Rozenkrantz Prize for Best Translated Crime Novel

Small towns sometimes have a voice of their own.

On a snowy night, the Halland police come upon a devastating car crash with the driver missing and a corpse in the trunk. As Officer Siri Bengtsson begins her investigation, she keeps returning to two teenage boys—best friends whose stories don't add up.

Twenty years later, a similar crime takes place, and Siri, who abruptly quit the force years before in frustration and despair, becomes the town's only hope to solve the murders and unpack a community's long-held secrets.

In The Living and the Dead, Christoffer Carlsson masterfully transports us to the fields and forests of Western Sweden, a region of farmers, mechanics, and truck drivers torn apart by economic injustice and self-deceit—a world where the portal between the living and the dead is flung wide open, where no one is entirely innocent and old crimes will not be forgotten.