A missing journalist, gone for two years without a trace.
A large quantity of drugs, adrift in the archipelago.
Three officers, two petty criminals, and a yellow labrador.
Dagge can’t believe his eyes when he tears open one of the six packages he found floating in the water. The white powder might as well have been diamonds. His partner in crime Branne doesn’t seem to understand the gold mine they have stumbled upon, and the labrador Dog obviously doesn’t understand jack shit, but Dagge does. 3 million worth of cocaine. A Godsend. Or is it?
Detective Demian Vide would probably not say that he fled Stockholm and the Violent Crimes Unit, but when he saw that his childhood home in Luleå was up for sale, he jumped at the chance to get away from the brutality of the capital. Yet, the distance doesn’t erase the scars; by day, he is plagued by a sharp pain in his leg, and by night, his nightmares constantly pull him back to the night of his last case when his partner was killed. However, taking a step down the ladder and choosing the quiet grind of routine police work may just be the savior.
Demian is appointed as mentor to two of Luleå police force’s younger detectives, Julia Berg and Khaled Zaki. Julia is the rookie talent driven by a thirst to prove herself, yet trust doesn’t come easily to her. She has been handed a cold case, the disappearance of local journalist Lisa Wegelin, and it doesn’t take long for her to see that the initial investigation is… lacking, to say the least. The initial theory was that Lisa either left of her own will or took her own life, but Julia isn’t buying it. As she digs deeper, a different picture begins to emerge. Was Lisa onto something dangerous… something someone didn’t want uncovered?
Meanwhile, Khaled Zaki, a father of four with three different women who finds a surprising joy in singing power ballads, is neck-deep in a very different kind of case. Packages of high-quality cocaine have surfaced in the archipelago, and someone is missing a shipment – and a large one on top of that. Khaled is determined to figure out who is smuggling drugs into his town, yet Demian feels the need to keep a close eye on him. Rumors about Khaled swirl around the precinct: allegations of corruption and cover-ups.
Soon, Demian finds himself at a crossroads when his childhood friend Dagge’s name keeps resurfacing in the investigations. Julia searches high and low for any traces of Lisa, and the more she learns, the more certain she becomes that there was someone who wanted Lisa to stop digging, whatever the cost. Meanwhile, Khaled fights to keep those closest to him out of the line of fire when his case tightens around him. In a town where everyone seems to know everyone, loyalties run deep, and the three police officers must navigate in the murky waters of their own morality. Who is protecting who, and at what cost?
Without A Trace is the first installment of Anders Sundkvist’s new series Crime Scene North, compellingly blending humor and intricately layered criminal investigations. Here, Sundkvist has crafted likable characters and a compelling trio, drawing the reader into a dynamic that is just as riveting as the steadily unfolding suspense.
