DARK TRACKS (Nattspår)

A house with secrets hid in the walls. A mythical suicide from a bygone era, tall tales still haunting the village.

After a blog entry went viral in white supremacy circles, the author Kaj Lomme is forced to leave the city. He ends up in the small community Svartbol on the banks of river Klarälven, a seemingly idyllic place, but Kaj soon realizes that he is being observed. The house he is in, has a past that has been hidden. In the walls he finds letters and notes from an autumn in the late thirties when a tragic event supposedly took place in the village.

The tracks lead him to an old, forgotten hate crime and a love story with a bloody ending. As the village’s dark history is revealed, Kaj begins to realize that someone does not want him there, and soon his own life is in danger.

Karin Aspenström is back with a well-written and exciting novel where past and present are woven together. Dark tracks is a captivating story of how something we once thought was buried, unexpectedly can come to light and prove to have terrible consequences.

244 pages

Rights

Sweden: Lind & Co

REVIEWS

“Exceptionally thrilling in both stories, the one from the thirties and the one in present time. Aspenström successfully uses the stereotypes about abandoned houses, forests, hidden secrets, odd locals and a horrifying credible extreme nationalism, that of course exists in Svartbol as well as elsewhere.”
Dagens Nyheter / SWE

“Aspenström brings up current issues in a well-written prose with skilled composition.
Kaj Lomme is moderately bitter, has moderate alcohol problems and is moderately drawn to new women in order to fit in as the main character in a suspense novel. However, Aspenström handles this balancing act well: despite approaching a stereotype, Lomme feels like a new and interesting character.
Dark Tracks offers enough drama to increase the reader’s heart rate without exaggerating, and Aspenström is good at providing enough details and clues without taking away the reader´s pleasure of solving the puzzles by herself.”
Ystads Allehanda / SWE

“Dark Tracks is not a crime novel, but it for sure is a suspense novel which nails the reader. It contains some surprising elements and themes that makes it raise above what one would expect. Simply, it is a good book. A darn good book.”
Deckarlogg / SWE

“Dark Tracks shows storytelling skills reaching the same heights as Selma Lagerlöf’s. It is a compelling voice which leads the story on a winding road all the way to the end of the story. One wonders if Karin Aspenström, like Selma Lagerlöf, may have listened to stories and sagas that have gotten stuck in her memory and triggered the authorship, because this is brilliant. Mark my words.”
Ölandsbladet / SWE

“Dark Tracks is a novel that spans over several decades and shows how the past has a tendency to catch up with us. Karin Aspenström has succeeded in creating a feeling of unease that wants to creep out from the pages and into your home in your own dark corners.”
Johannas deckarhörna, blog / SWE

“Exciting, strong and captivating.”
Jennie’s Book List / SWE