Trolls

August 26, 2019
Spjut’s unsettling third supernatural thriller (after 2015’s The Shapeshifters) finds cryptozoologist Susso Myrén, who believes in the existence of malignant trolls (whom her nature photographer grandfather claimed to have photographed), living in self-imposed isolation. Meanwhile, cult leader Lennart Brösth, whom she helped apprehend years before, languishes in a psychiatric hospital, until he manages to sever his own arm, ensuring that he’s taken to a less secure area of the facility from which he’s able to escape. Brösth, who’s supposedly 100 years old and may not be human, was the head of the Jillesnåle Cult, whose members kidnapped children and raised them as their own. Susso suspects that the abducted children weren’t human by the time the cultists were done with them. Now, to end her isolation and save her own life, Susso must join the effort to end Brösth’s threat to society once again. Readers should be prepared for some creepy scenes—Brösth first appears sinking his teeth into the mangled stump of his arm­—but horror fans sated on zombies and vampires will be spellbound.

September 15, 2019
Swedish author Spjut returns with another eerie tale riffing on Scandinavian mythology in his follow-up to The Shapeshifters (2015). It's been nearly ten years since Susso Myr�n helped save a boy from a cultish community of trolls, and she is now aloof and lives in relative isolation after her traumatic experience. The cult leader, Lennart Br�sth, has escaped prison and is organizing his band for unknown but menacing ends. Diana, Susso's longtime friend, is worried that Lennart wants revenge and she is determined to find Susso and bring her safely home, even though it may endanger her family. The trolls of Spjut's world are dark and cruel creatures who blend into society and command the power of compulsion over humans, bending them to their will. Set against a backdrop of the harsh but beautiful Nordic landscape, the story burns with tension; psychological horror; and very real, visceral violence. This tale will appeal to readers of dark fantasy based on folklore and myths as well as readers who enjoy the ominous and creepy novels of John Ajvide Lindqvist (I Am behind You, 2018) .(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)