Five-year-old Bruno can’t wake his mother up. He needs help. He puts on his wellies and coat and steps into the night.
Author: Eva Frantz
Swedish original: Blå villan
Publisher: Schildts & Södertsröms, 2017
Genre: crime fiction
Number of pages: 255 pp.
Reading material: Swedish original, Finnish translation, English sample
Rights sold: Estonia, Rahva Raamat; Denmark, Gyldendal; Germany, Aufbau (optioned); Norway, Mangschou.
A young couple is driving home from a party. They are shocked to the core to see a little boy in the headlights of their car, at night, alone, in the middle of a country road. But nothing compares to what awaits them at his home the blue villa. His mother is lying in a pool of blood on the floor, barely alive.
The case is handed over to police officer Anna Glad, whose life is stuck in a rut. She finds out that Becca, the writer of a popular lifestyle blog Blue Villa, has received death threats in the comments section of her blog. Becca’s husband Peter has just moved out, angry because his house has been turned into a magazine spread.
Dark and dangerous things from Becca’s past, unknown even to Peter, come to light as the investigations draw on. And who is bringing flowers to the abandoned villa with locked doors?
The Blue Villa is the first novel in a series of books about officer Anna Glad. The middle-aged Glad is searching for a new direction in life, all the while solving small-town crimes, often resulting from human weakness and mistakes of the past. The second part of the series, The Eighth Maiden, came out in June 2018.
“Last year, Eva Frantz proved her significant talent as a cozy crime fiction author with her book Summer Isle. […] In The Blue Villa she has taken a further step in combining premeditated horrors with the aptly portrayed everyday life. […] She has limitless skill in describing petty crime – from just-about legal malice and revenge to browbeating your family with shitty behaviour.”
– Hufvudstadsbladet newspaper
“Secrets and domesticity in a Swedish-speaking Finnish setting. I can’t wait for the next Anna Glad novel.”
–Vasabladet newspaper
Also available:
Then Die Contentedly (2024)
You Will Not Take My Child (2023)
Out of the Game (2020)
The Eighth Maiden (2018)
Summer Isle (2016)
The Secret of Helmersbruk Manor (2021)
Queen of the Night (2021)
The Mystery of Raspberry Hill (2018)
About the author:
Eva Frantz