The water is still, almost beautiful. It gently laps over the corpse, as if it wants to wash away what has happened. Seaweed sways in the current beneath the body. The eyes are wide open beneath the water, pupils dilated. The man’s skin is pale from the cold. Well, no. Not from the cold. From death.
Risavika, Stavanger. One of Norway’s most industrialized areas, filled with companies with major financial interests and people who dislike having the police show up at their door. Here, in the waters lapping at the shore, a man is found dead. Police officer Martha Krogh is stumped: the man is sharply dressed, seemingly without injuries, and carrying an employee card issued by the local university – a card that belongs to a woman called Elena Kurbats. Martha’s gut feeling blares. What was the man doing down by the water with someone else’s ID in his pocket? And how is Elena Kurbats connected to the man the tide is slowly claiming?
The autopsy proves Martha’s initial suspicions – the man was murdered – but they don’t have a single clue as to who he is. Elena Kurbats, the woman on the employee card, claims she has never met him, and the man’s description doesn’t match a single missing person’s report. It seems Martha has a murdered John Doe on her hands.
At the same time, Martha is playing a dangerous game. Her superiors have discovered her connection to the MC-gang Jæren Syndicate, and in exchange for their silence, they are pressuring her to gather information on one of her colleagues whom they suspect is corrupt. In an attempt to save her own career, Martha decides to give in. While searching for anything incriminating, she uncovers more than she bargained for: documents suggesting that this colleague is hiding something about her father’s supposed suicide. From that moment on, everything begins to unravel.
When a young man who may have witnessed something near the scene of the crime goes missing, the stakes rise even higher. Martha’s search for answers leads her to places where ambition knows no limits. Power, it seems, comes with a price, but how far are people willing to go to reach the top? As the questions multiply, and the answers remain elusive, Martha must take a gamble on who she can trust – knowing that the consequences of the wrong choice could prove detrimental.
A Deeper Betrayal is the third installment of Kaja Nygaard’s celebrated Martha Krogh series. In this suspenseful novel, our beloved protagonist must navigate both a complex murder investigation and the shadows of her own past. Tense and compelling, A Deeper Betrayal reveals the true cost of loyalty, and the harrowing truth that those meant to protect us may sometimes be the ones we most need protection from.
Extra Materials
Norway, Bonnier Norsk
