One of the New York Times’s Best Crime Novels of the Year • A Good Morning America Buzz Pick #1
INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER • A serial killer in a small Swedish town commits his first murder the
same night the prime minister is assassinated—a thrilling and profoundly poignant” (Angie Kim)
novel by one of the country’s top criminologists hailed as the finest crime writer we have in
Sweden” (David Lagercrantz author of The Girl in the Spider’s Web and other novels in Stieg
Larsson’s Millennium Series) Christoffer Carlsson is to the police procedural what Cormac
McCarthy is to the Western.”—Anthony Marra author of Mercury Pictures Presents and A
Constellation of Vital Phenomena A CRIMEREADS AND KIRKUS REVIEWS BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR In
February 1986 the Halland police receive a call from a man who claims to have attacked his
first victim. I’m going to do it again he says before the line cuts off. By the time police
officer Sven Jörgensson reaches the crime scene the woman is taking her last breath. For Sven
this will prove a decisive moment. On the same night Sweden plunges into a state of shock
after the murder of the prime minister. Could there possibly be a connection? As Sven becomes
obsessed with the case two more fall victim. For years Sven remains haunted by the murders he
cannot solve fearing the killer will strike again. Having failed to catch him Sven retires
from the police passing his obsession to his son who has joined the force to be closer to his
father. Decades later the case unexpectedly resurfaces when a novelist returns home to Halland
amid a failed marriage and a sputtering career. The writer befriends the retired police officer
who helps the novelist—our narrator—unspool the many strands of this engrossing tale about a
community confronting its shames and legacies. A #1 bestseller in Sweden Blaze Me a Sun marks
the American debut of the youngest winner of the Best Swedish Crime Novel of the Year award
the top prize for Swedish crime writers whose past winners include Stieg Larsson and Henning
Mankell.
