Don't be afraid of the dark

In a town cut off by a flood, where everyone is hiding their sins, the police must uncover the truth.

It's 1983, and the sleepy town of Silvernäs is facing a dramatic spring thaw. The masses of snow are turning into raging torrents, and the rising water threatens fields and houses. Amid this menacing atmosphere, a severed human hand is found on a fence post. At almost the same time, Vanja Johansson, the daughter of local policeman Erland Hjort's old friend, is discovered hanged in an attic.

Erland Hjort finds himself in the middle of two seemingly unrelated tragedies. As Silvernäs battles the rising water level, more parts of a mutilated body appear. Strange symbols carved into wood – intertwined triangles and pentagrams – are also found near the remains, and the trail leads to a group of troubled teenagers who dabble in the occult.

Hjort's investigation becomes even more complicated when he finds himself strongly attracted to Anna Karjala, the sister of the deceased Vanja – a tough but vulnerable woman full of dark secrets. Their mutual attraction leads the policeman onto dangerous ground, where the line between duty and personal desire becomes dangerously blurred.

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The pace is slow, the tone almost anxious. The reader can feel the cold and darkness, typical of both a Norrland winter and the murder Erland and his colleagues are trying to solve. Readers looking for cosy crime fiction will be disappointed, as this is a very dark, very chilling, and very Nordic story.
— DAST Magazine

Per Moritz Stenborg's novel, Don't Fear the Dark, opens with a scene in which a severed hand is waving from a fence post. It is a focused and distinctive work that allows its tormented and complex characters to shine.
— Dagens Nyheter

There is a touch of melancholy in the story, not only because of the 1980s setting, but also because some people want to live as if they were invisible. They don't want the world to notice or pay attention to them. It's refreshing to read a book that isn't formulaic or written as the first instalment of a series with an unknown number of books. It’s as if the author trusts in the power of the story and lets us, the readers, slowly, piece by piece, sometimes as if by chance, get closer to a possible solution to the mystery.
— Charlotte Cronquist Jangdal, journalist and author