The air inside the bus is thick and stifling, and the vast farmlands that stretch endlessly blur past as journalist Nancy travels toward her hometown of Ljungbyholm in Småland. Heat clings to her damp skin, heavy and invasive. An insidious sensation coils through her body, as if thousands of spiders are writhing beneath her flesh. Then comes a whisper, almost as if she is in a dream: It’s happening. It’s happening again.
Nancy has received a tip. The email was detailed, filled with emotion. Fear. We spotted an abandoned, moldy caravan in the forest. Something moved within. And then we heard a scream for help. The message sparked something within Nancy. It stirred up memories of a childhood in Ljungbyholm which was shaped by stories about Jakob, a young teenager who stepped into an old caravan in the depths of the woods and vanished. It was as if the marsh itself had opened up and swallowed them both whole. Neither Jakob nor the caravan was ever seen again – until, perhaps, now.
Meanwhile, Ola Berg’s fourteen-year-old son, Felix, has been found dead, adrift on a raft in the river coursing through town. The initial autopsy points toward natural causes, likely some kind of heart failure, but Ola is convinced otherwise. Why would Felix’s heart stop for no reason, and what was he doing out on the river in the first place? When Ola learns that the last photo on Felix’s phone was of a caravan, just like the one Jakob stepped into before he vanished, Ola grows certain there’s something more to his son’s death.
Ridden by grief and conviction, Ola reaches out to Nancy as he has learned that she is looking into both cases. Together, they begin following every lead, every inconsistency, every rumor that might explain Felix’s death and Jakob’s mysterious disappearance. They come across a tall tale of a white clad figure lurking in the woods, whom many in town were convinced was responsible for whatever happened to Jakob. At the same time, both Ola and Nancy notice signs of someone, or something, not wanting them digging into the cases.
As their investigation proceeds, it becomes clear that Felix’s death was all but natural, and the world around them begins to crack. Dreams bleed into waking life, and Nancy starts to lose time, almost as if she is operating on another frequency. Meanwhile, Ola receives strange phone calls, and an old walkie-talkie crackles to life with nothing but breath – and sometimes a single word: Dad.
The past leaks and the present bends, until eventually, reality snaps.
Set in a seemingly ordinary town in rural Småland during the hottest summer in living memory, The Boys of the Marshlands blends a fever dream of psychological horror with a grounded, elegant crime case. With the reality-slipping atmosphere of Dean Koontz and a mystery worthy of Tana French, Henrik Hollbox has written an utterly suspenseful story that teeters on the edge of illusion, where reality hangs by a fraying thread.
The Boys of the Marshlands will be published by Norstedts on April 23rd, 2026.
