The Disappeared: A Novel

by Kristina Ohlsson

Overview

From “one of Sweden’s best younger writers” (Los Angeles Times Magazine) and a “talented new author” (Booklist) comes this riveting third book in the critically acclaimed Fredrika Bergman crime series.

A young woman on her way to a party vanishes without a trace, and it’s not until two years later that her body turns up. Mercilessly dismembered, it has deteriorated considerably in its lonely burial spot on the edge of a forest. The forensic team is able to identify the body as that of Rebecca Tolle, a student at the nearby university.

Investigative analyst Fredrika Bergman and her team are assigned to solve the case and question those who may be responsible for Rebecca’s brutal death. Soon, more bodies are found in the same area. But the killer is still at large.

As Fredrika digs into the case, she discovers that when Rebecca died, she was researching a person with a dark past—one that Rebecca seems to have uncovered. Fredrika is deeply invested in the already heart-wrenching case, but when her lover’s name comes up as a possible suspect, it might be too much for her to bear…

“A gripping tale not for the squeamish, the shy, or the nervous” (Kirkus Reviews), The Disappeared is internationally bestselling author Kristina Ohlsson’s most mesmerizing thriller yet.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781476734019
Publisher:	Emily Bestler Books
Publication date:	03/17/2015
Series:	The Fredrika Bergman Series , #3
Pages:	432
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 8.20(h) x 3.90(d)

About the Author

Kristina Ohlsson is a political scientist and until recently held the position of Counter-Terrorism Officer at OSCE (the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe). She has previously worked at the Swedish Security Service, the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and the Swedish National Defense College. Kristina lives in Stockholm.

Read an Excerpt

The Disappeared

The sun had been up for less than an hour when Jörgen saw a dead person for the first time. The frequent snowfalls of the winter followed by the spring rain had softened the ground and made the water levels rise. The combined forces of wind and weather had worked through layer after layer of the earth covering the body, and eventually a huge crater had opened up in the ground between the rocks and the trees.

However, the dead woman still wasn’t fully visible. It was the dog that dug her up. Jörgen was standing among the trees, somewhat at a loss.

“Come on now, Svante.”

He had always found it difficult to make his voice heard, to gain the respect of others. His boss had pointed this out in countless appraisal interviews, and his wife had left him for that very reason.

“You take up so little room that you’re practically bloody invisible,” she had said on the night she moved out.

And now here he was, standing in an unfamiliar forest with a dog that didn’t even belong to him. His sister had insisted that he move into their house while he was looking after Svante. It was only for a week, after all, and surely it didn’t make any difference to Jörgen where he lived for such a short time?

She was wrong; Jörgen could feel it in every fiber of his body. It made a huge difference where a person lived. Neither he nor Svante were particularly happy with this arrangement.

Weak rays of sunshine filtered down through the trees, making the glade glow softly in a golden light. Silent and peaceful. The only disturbing element was Svante’s constant scrabbling in the pile of earth, his front paws thumping out a drumbeat on the ground. Soil was flying in all directions.

“Svante, come here,” Jörgen ventured, with a little more authority this time. But the dog was deaf to his plea and started to whimper with excitement and frustration. Jörgen sighed. He walked wearily over to the dog and clumsily patted his back.

“Listen, it’s time we went home. I mean, we were here yesterday too. We can come back tomorrow.”

He could hear the way he sounded: as if he were talking to a small child. But Svante was not a child. He was a German shepherd who weighed something in the region of thirty kilos, and he had picked up the scent of something that was a lot more interesting than his owner’s weary brother, standing there on a mossy mound banging his feet up and down.

“You need to show him who’s boss,” Jörgen’s sister had said. “Give clear commands.”

A burst of birdsong made Jörgen glance around anxiously. He was overcome by a sudden fear that someone else was nearby.

With one click he attached Svante’s lead, and was about to embark on the final battle to get the dog home when he saw the plastic sack that had been exposed by Svante’s efforts. The dog’s jaws were locked, his teeth biting through the plastic; he tore away a large piece of the sack.

A body?

A dead person buried in the ground?

“Svante, come away!” Jörgen roared.

The dog froze in midmovement and backed away. For the first and only time he obeyed his temporary master.

Editorial Reviews

Expect Ohlsson to join Nesbo on most readers' can't-miss lists.” —Booklist (starred review)

From the Publisher

One of Sweden's best younger writers.

Los Angeles Times Magazine

Ohlsson should be added to reading lists that include other Scandinavian suspense authors, such as Jo Nesbo.

City Book Review

★ 01/06/2014
Credible characters whose heartaches are all too close for comfort populate Ohlsson’s outstanding third Fredrika Bergman crime novel (after 2012’s Silenced). Fredrika, a Stockholm detective who has returned from maternity leave too soon, lives with an emotionally fragile, much older partner, who’s being targeted by a vengeful student. Recently widowed Alex Recht, a colleague of Fredrika’s who became obsessed with the disappearance of Rebecca Trolle two years earlier, must contend with the discovery of Rebecca’s dismembered body. That Rebecca had been investigating a possible snuff film suggests the darkest of motivations for her murder. While the main characters often lapse into self-doubt, self-deprecation, and self-disgust, they never abandon their essential humanity. Alex finds the stirrings of new love with Rebecca’s grieving mother, and Fredrika confronts the reality of life with the aging partner she still loves—fitful glimpses of redemption in Ohlsson’s stark landscape of moral turpitude. Agent: Niclas Salomonsson, Salomonsson Agency (Sweden). (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

10/15/2013
When Ohlsson isn't serving as a counterterrorism officer at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, she writes the popular Fredrika Bergman crime series. In this third installment, Fredrika is investigating the death of a young woman found dismembered in a forested area near Stockholm. Then another corpse appears, and another, and Fredrika is dismayed to find her lover listed as a suspect in the killings

Library Journal

2014-02-04
The third case for Sweden's Criminal Investigation Department (Silenced, 2013, etc.) presents a riveting series of crimes whose investigators are deeply embroiled in them. Two years after she went missing, Rebecca Trolle, or at least most of her, has finally turned up in a pair of plastic bags buried in a shallow grave. The discovery of her remains immediately sets off all sorts of alarm bells. Why were photos of her as "Miss Miracle" posted on a porn site two months after her death? How much progress had she made on her unlikely dissertation topic, an attempt to prove children's author Thea Aldrin innocent of the murder of her husband 30 years ago, a murder for which Thea already served a prison sentence? Did Thea really write Memory and Asteroid, the violent sexual fantasies whose 1976 publications made her both a best-selling novelist and a pariah? Who's been sending Thea—long a resident in the Mångården care home and mute since 1981—flowers every week with the terse note "Thanks"? Which member of her intimate film club—financier Morgan Axberger, solicitor Elias Hjort or literature professor Spencer Lagergren—shot the footage showing a young woman being hacked to death? And how are these questions connected to the recent sexual allegations Lagergren's student Tova Eriksson has lodged against him or to his hope of a peaceful life with his lover, police consultant Fredrika Bergman, and their baby daughter? Ohlsson frames this painful case—"a drama that was still claiming its victims 30 years on"—with a series of police interrogations of Fredrika and DI Peder Rydh that ramp up the anxiety even further. A gripping tale not for the squeamish, the shy or the nervous.

Kirkus Reviews