Under the heavy September sky, the orangery in the botanical garden stands shrouded in darkness. The laughter and music from the party behind the thick wooden door echoes in the distance. Carl-Henrik’s throat tightens as he spots the figure approaching. Can’t we talk this through? Come on, we know each other. The knife in the person’s hand gleams in the moonlight, revealing a small triangle etched into the blade. Carl-Henrik instantly recognizes the symbol. As he backs up against the low balcony railing, the person bolts at him with the knife, driving Carl-Henrik over the edge. His piercing scream slices through the night, only to be silenced by a sickening thud as Carl-Henrik hits the ground.
Liam Lode, a young administrator at Uppsala University’s philosophy department, has long been fascinated by the university’s secret philosophy society. He spends his evenings pouring over endless pages of research beneath the library’s warm, quivering light. In his eagerness to unearth the hidden past of the society, presumed long disbanded, Liam comes across the name Greta Sparre. She is a retired journalist, who has spent much of her career investigating the society’s mysteries. On a crisp fall evening, just as the leaves are about to turn, Liam persuades Greta to meet him over a glass of wine. As the night deepens, their conversation drifts from the philosophical society to all the great thinkers – Plato, Aristotle and Descartes. Soon, in the dim light of the candlelit bar, the unlikely pair grow determined to breathe life into the long-lost society.
Little do Greta and Liam know that their shared curiosity will soon draw them into the peculiar death of Carl-Henrik, a respected PhD in philosophy, who is found murdered at a party held in his honor. The guests, each harboring their own motives – greed, revenge, jealousy – are all potential culprits, but who among them dared to act? Was it the cunning philosophy professor with secrets of his own, the enigmatic botanist who disappeared during the party, or even Carl-Henrik’s own sister, desperate to claim their parents’ inheritance? As Liam and Greta’s amateur investigation proceeds, each clue they uncover seems to lead back to the very society they sought to revive. Soon, Liam and Greta are forced to confront the ultimate philosophical question: is it ever justified to kill to protect the one you love?
After the success with her Sophia in Paris series, Karolina Schützer now returns with Eden of Death, the first book in an intriguing cozy crime series, set against the backdrop of Sweden’s oldest university town. Blending the atmospheric tension of Donna Tartt’s The Secret History with the classic charm of Agatha Christie and Midsomer Murders, this closed room mystery introduces amateur sleuths Liam and Greta as they navigate the mysteries of Uppsala’s academic world, where danger and deceit lurk behind every corner.
