The Living and the Dead

A Novel About a Crime

By: Christoffer Carlsson, Rachel Willson-Broyles - translator

Narrated by: Peter Noble

THE AWARD-WINNING INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER

One town. Two crimes. Twenty years of silence.

A “brooding and brilliant” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) murder mystery set in a rural Swedish town, where one community’s secrets will be laid bare over the next twenty years . . .

“All the makings of a page-turning thriller, but with an emotional depth that is truly rare.”—FREDRIK BACKMAN
“The finest crime writer we have in Sweden.”—DAVID LAGERCRANTZ
“Carlsson is to the police procedural what Cormac McCarthy is to the Western.”—ANTHONY MARRA
“A thriller rendered with precision and beauty.”—ADAM WHITE
“Carlsson plumbs what can and cannot be known about human lives and criminal investigations.”—THE NEW YORK TIMES
“A must for Nordic noir and psychological mystery fans.”—LIBRARY JOURNAL (STARRED REVIEW)
"Carlsson is the creme de la creme of Nordic noir.”—BOOKPAGE (STARRED REVIEW)

One of Publishers Weekly’s Most Anticipated Mysteries and Thrillers of the Fall

WINNER OF THE BEST NORDIC CRIME NOVEL (THE GLASS KEY AWARD) • WINNER OF THE BEST SWEDISH CRIME NOVEL AWARD • WINNER OF DENMARK’S PALLE ROSENKRANTZ PRIZE FOR BEST TRANSLATED CRIME NOVEL

Small towns sometimes have a voice of their own.

On a snowy winter night in 1999, Sander and Killian leave a house party together outside a small town in rural Sweden. The very best of friends, the two seventeen-year-olds imagine they will remain so forever. But by the next morning, a corpse is found in the trunk of a car, and each boy is a suspect in the murder. Each has something they want to conceal from the police. And from the other.

The hunt for the killer will take more than twenty years. It will see the lead detective leave the force forever. And it won’t end until a second body turns up in similar circumstances, and the tight-knit community’s secrets are finally brought to light.

In The Living and the Dead, renowned criminologist Christoffer Carlsson masterfully transports us to the fields and forests of western Sweden, a region of farmers 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 and where no one is entirely innocent.

Critic reviews

“I just don’t know anyone else who writes quite like this. All the makings of a page-turning thriller, but with an emotional depth that is truly rare. Carlsson is far and away my favorite Scandinavian crime writer at the moment, and The Living and the Dead is among his very best.”—Fredrik Backman, #1 New York Times bestselling author

“Here’s a thriller to break your heart: a magnificent new novel, epic but immediate, menacing yet moral, that assembles some of the most beloved tropes of recent years—the frostbitten danger of Scandinavian crime; the small-town intimacy of Broadchurch—and charges them with fresh dark energy. And if you think international fiction isn't for you, The Living and the Dead proves that fear needs no translation.”—A.J. Finn, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Woman in the Window

“The Living and the Dead is the kind of novel I’m always looking for but can rarely find: literary fiction stocked in the crime shelves, a thriller rendered with precision and beauty. Carlsson makes this place and these people feel absolutely real.”—Adam White, bestselling author of The Midcoast

“A tender and beautifully written novel about a crime that rocks a small community. But really it is about the people involved, the impact of violence, and the danger of keeping secrets. Atmospheric and thought provoking, I became totally immersed in this cold, fractured world.”—Araminta Hall, author of One of the Good Guys

“I have long maintained that Nordic noir is the creme de la creme of contemporary crime fiction; Christoffer Carlson is the creme de la creme of Nordic noir . . . [The Living and the Dead] is poised to impress a whole new audience, and impress it will.”—BookPage, starred review

“Days before Christmas 1999 in the small Swedish town of Skavböke, eighteen-year-old Mikael Söderström and his friends are partying to celebrate the end of term. Mikael leaves the party around midnight but never returns home. . . . Carlsson has a knack for psychological procedurals, as his latest proves, with numerous characters and motives to keep readers guessing. . . . A must for Nordic noir and psychological mystery fans.”—Library Journal, starred review

“As with Carlsson’s excellent previous efforts, including Blaze Me a Sun (2023), this ‘novel about a crime’ goes beyond clever plotting to examine Swedish identity, life in a new era, and the ties between living and dying. . . . brooding and brilliant.”—Kirkus Reviews, starred review

“A skillfully constructed psychological thriller.”—Booklist

“Devotees of Scandinavian noir will relish this.”—Publishers Weekly