The Living and the Dead by Christoffer Carlsson

I do have a soft spot for Scandi Noir. I'm drawn to the sense of place, where the days  are strangely long or short, where the sun can shine in the night or not at all. The intense forests and open spaces covered with snow. Add to that a cover of a stunning deer and I'm sold.

This is the story of a small village in Sweden and opens where the local teenagers are coming home from a Christmas party in 1999. Like a lot of youthful parties, there has been arguments and lots of alcohol. One boy doesn't make it home. Two of the boys are suspected of killing him although there isn't evidence to charge either of them. The villagers have an idea of who the murderer was and everyone seems to accept that and move on.

It took me a while to engage with this book. The list of characters at the front should have warned me that there were a lot of people involved, although I did come to recognise them eventually. There are several perspectives involved including the villagers and police officers, and their points of view are jumbled together in the same sections. Add to that the non-linear timeline plus the same information appearing a number of times - I lost the focus and wondered what the story was about. A slow burn without the burn.

​However, the final section jumps twenty years and the villagers are united at the funeral of one of the residents. Here the pace and suspense quickens as those who left the village return and secrets are uncovered. Things aren't quite as they first appeared.

This is a murder mystery about guilt, memory, friendship, how the past impacts the present and how the relationship between the living and the dead is wide open. An atmospheric tale of how one village suffers and responds as a whole. Intricate and psychologically complex, a book to be read while wide awake.

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Published by Michael Joseph on 8 January 2026. Translated by Rachel Willson-Broyles.
​Advance review copy supplied by the publisher.

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