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The Saint

ebook
0 of 1 copy available
Wait time: About 2 weeks
0 of 1 copy available
Wait time: About 2 weeks

In this internationally bestselling Nordic noir, the investigation into the murder of a beloved soccer coach in a quiet Stockholm neighborhood reveals a dark truth.

Local girls' soccer coach Sven-Gunnar Erlandsson is practically a saint in the community, known for his good works and volunteering. So when his body is found in Stockholm's beautiful Herräng forest, shot at close range in the back of the neck while walking home from a late-night poker game, the police struggle to find a motive. Nothing has been taken from his pockets except his cell phone, and the only other clues left behind are a cryptic handwritten note and a handful of playing cards.

The Hammarby murder squad takes the case, splitting up the leads between their eclectic mix of officers. Led by Detective Chief Inspector Conny Sjöberb, the team also includes a veteran inspector who balances his career with caring for his disabled daughter, a widow who has returned to police work after several decades spent as a homemaker and pursuing a law degree, a new transplant who recently achieved minor celebrity status as an Idol contestant, and a young police assistant struggling with trauma she can't share with her colleagues.

Each member of the team pursues a different lead and, as they interview Erlandsson's friends and family, they discover a disturbing web of secrets, including a possible link to the cases of two missing girls. Could Erlandsson have been less of a saint than everyone thinks?

A dark and layered story told through multiple perspectives, The Saint is the fourth in the highly acclaimed Hammarby police series from Swedish author Carin Gerhardsen.
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    • Publisher's Weekly

      August 5, 2024
      Mathematician Gerhardssen’s intricately plotted if slightly undercooked latest Hammarby murder squad mystery (after Black Ice) finds Stockholm DCI Conny Sjøberg and his team investigating the killing of a man with a spotless reputation. After soccer coach Sven-Gunnar Erlendsson is shot in the neck, execution-style, while returning home from a poker club meeting, Sjøberg and his cohorts pursue a school of red herrings, before most of the investigators conclude that Erlendsson, who spent his free time handing out clothes and food to Stockholm’s homeless population, had no real enemies. That changes when math whiz Hedvig “Walleye” Wallin, an underestimated widow who regularly clashes with Sjøberg, starts to see through Erlendsson’s supposed sainthood while reviewing video evidence, then links him to the recent disappearance of two young girls. Gerhardssen gives each of her investigators room to shine, but her decision to reveal the killer two-thirds of the way through the novel doesn’t pay off, resulting in a somewhat flimsy finale. On a brighter note, the ending leaves plenty of intriguing loose ends for Gerhardssen to pick up in future installments. Series fans will enjoy themselves.

    • Kirkus

      September 1, 2024
      The latest case for the Police Violent Crime Unit in Hammarby, Sweden, starts with the murder of an apparently inoffensive banker and then spreads and spreads some more. None of his neighbors has anything but praise for Sven-Gunnar Erlandsson. He was kind to everyone, generous in volunteering for local causes, and conscientious about underwriting his regular poker game's bank without calling attention to it. So why did someone shoot Svempa execution style when he was on his way home from his most recent poker session? At first DCI Conny Sj�berg and his mates wonder if the four cards found in his pocket might indicate that he was cheating at the rounds of poker he subsidized. But there are only four cards, not the five required for a poker hand. Cracks begin to appear in Svempa's facade when Adrianti, the wife he met and married on a trip to Singapore, admits that in addition to the son and two daughters they've raised together, she has a daughter of her own who left home four years ago and whom she never talks about. Gradually Sj�berg and company discover that Svempa's stepdaughter isn't the only young woman who's gone missing from the community. Larissa Sotnikova, an 11-year-old summer visitor staying with Staffan and Marie Jenner, vanished eight years earlier just before she was to return home. And Rebecka Magnusson, a 15-year-old with ADHD, ran away from home five months ago. Working with a cast of characters who stubbornly refuse to develop any complexity, Gerhardsen labors to connect the disappearances at the heart of her story in ways that manage to be both obscure and obvious. A frustrating slog for all concerned.

      COPYRIGHT(2024) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

    • Booklist

      September 15, 2024
      In the quiet Stockholm suburb of Hammarby, beloved youth soccer coach Svempa Erlandsson is murdered walking home from a local restaurant. In his pocket, Violent Crime Unit detectives find a "dead man's hand" of cards and a slip of paper covered in handwritten codes. Interviews of Erlandsson's circle don't reveal motives or suspects, but they do flag up something strange: three young girls in Erlandsson's periphery are missing. Following a hunch, Inspector Hedvig Wallin digs up an online post by a local hitman that leads them to Erlandsson's killer. But while their biggest case has been closed, the team remains haunted by the lost girls. When inspectors Wallin and Jens Sund�n discover that the "codes" in Erlandsson's pocket are GPS coordinates to a local forest, they discover the predatory rot beneath Hammarby's wholesome facade. This gripping procedural (fourth in the Hammarby series, following The Last Lullaby, 2014) offers smart investigation and a disturbing mystery, but the absorbing shifts in the VCU detectives' relationships are Gerhardsen's most impressive feat.

      COPYRIGHT(2024) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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