The Imperial Merchant Ship Chathrand is the last of her kind. Six hundred years old, the secrets of her construction long forgotten, the massive vessel dwarfs every other sailing craft in the world. It is a palace with sails, a floating outpost of the Empire of Arqual. And it is on its most vital mission yet: to deliver a young woman whose marriage will seal the peace between Arqual and its mortal enemy, the secretive Mzithrin Empire.
In the middle of the freezing winter, a journalist is murdered in the northern Swedish town of Lulea. Crime reporter Annika Bengtzon suspects that the killing is linked to an attack against an air base in the late 60. Against the explicit orders of her boss, Annika continues her investigation of the death, which is soon followed by a series of shocking murders.
AN ACCIDENTAL DEATH? Reporter Annika Bengtzon is working on the story of a devastating crime when she hears that a journalist investigating the same incident has been killed. It appears to be a hit-and-run accident. A SERIES OF MURDERS. Several brutal killings follow - all linked by handwritten letters sent to the victims' relatives. When Annika unravels a connection with the story she's writing, she is thrown on to the trail of a deadly psychopath. THE HUNT IS ON.
Charlie Bone has finally found his father, but he’s disappeared again - on a second honeymoon with Charlie’s mother. But there’s no time to miss them, for there’s a strange salty mist in the air, and chilling howls in the night. And someone has been searching Charlie’s house. What are they looking for? And could Dagbert, the new boy with pale lips and cold aquamarine eyes, have something to do with it?