The Darkest Day

Håkan Nesser

Translated by Sarah Death

2018 Nominee

Petrona Award

02 November 2017
9781509809318
544 pages

Synopsis

The Darkest Day is the first novel in the five part Inspector Barbarotti series from renowned Swedish crime author Håkan Nesser.

It’s December in the quiet Swedish town of Kymlinge, and the Hermansson family are gathering to celebrate father Karl-Erik and eldest daughter Ebba’s joint landmark birthdays. But beneath the guise of happy festivities, tensions are running high, and it’s not long before the night takes a dark and unexpected turn . . .

Before the weekend is over, two members of the Hermansson family are missing, and it’s up to Inspector Barbarotti – a detective who spends as much of his time debating the existence of God as he does solving cases – to determine exactly what has happened. And he soon discovers he’ll have to unravel a whole tangle of sinister family secrets in the process . . .

Barbarotti has to disentangle years of bad blood and resentment to get to the heart of a thrillingly complex case
Told with wry humour and compassion, Nesser has four more Barbarotti stories to come — cherish them all
In an exemplary translation by Sarah Death, this tangled tale of guilt and betrayal whets the appetite for translations of the other Barbarotti novels