The Ninth Grave

Starred review from October 23, 2017
The prologue of Ahnhem’s scathing second Fabian Risk novel (after 2016’s Victim Without a Face) recounts how a letter written by a dying Palestinian held prisoner in Israel in 1999 got mailed to a woman in Sweden. Flash forward to 2009, when the Swedish minister of justice disappears one day outside the parliament building in Stockholm. Risk’s boss orders the sympathetically drawn policeman, who’s plagued by conflicts between his job and his marriage, to undertake a secret search for the missing minister. Meanwhile, in Copenhagen, Dunja Hougaard, an edgy Danish homicide detective, probes the vicious murder of the wife of a popular TV star. Excerpts from the Palestinian prisoner’s letter point to the horrendous truth behind this and subsequent brutal slayings. In the end, Risk and Hougaard arrive at an interlocking solution to their respective investigations, and Ahnhem exposes the greed and corruption at the highest levels of society and government. Fans of Scandinavian noir won’t want to miss this disturbing thriller.

October 1, 2017
In this sequel to Victim without a Face (2015), driven Stockholm detective Fabian Risk's mentor taps him to launch a covert investigation into the Minister of Justice's disappearance (covert because state security has claimed the case). Unfortunately, the minister is killed before Risk finds him, and the evidence points to Ossian Krempf, a cannibalistic serial killer who has been supposedly rehabilitated and released. Meanwhile, in Copenhagen, Danish detective Dunja Hougaard targets suspected serial rapist and killer Benny Willumsen for the ax murder of a talk-show host's wife. But, after catching their big fish, Dunja and Fabian harbor doubts that their respective cases have actually been solved, and a re-examination of the evidence points both toward a plot involving the Israeli embassy, organ trafficking, and a complex cover-up. For fans of Scandinavian crime fiction, this hefty, richly detailed procedural has it all: gritty, snow-covered cities; nightmarish serial killers; and juicy moral dilemmas. Recommended for readers seeking skilled storytelling touched with horror and suspense, such as Lars Kepler's Joona Linna tales and Jo Nesb's Harry Hole thrillers.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)

July 1, 2017

Winner of Swedish and German crime fiction awards for his first novel, Victim Without a Face, Ahnhem returns with the second book in his internationally best-selling "Fabian Risk" series. Swedish criminal investigator Risk and his Danish counterpart Dunja Hougaard are having a tough time. The Swedish minister of justice has vanished while walking from Parliament to his car, a Danish television star has been horribly murdered, and corpses missing body parts are starting to appear everywhere.

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