In the Shadow of Power

What do the new arrivals on Sandhamn Island have to fear? Their own secrets—in this gripping novel of suspense by the bestselling author of In the Heat of the Moment.

The new summer house on Sandhamn Island is an architectural dream for its owner, Carsten Jonsson. It’s a nightmare for the locals. The venture capitalist has flouted local traditions, property lines, and the natural beauty of the coastline. He’s also too wealthy and arrogant to heed the anonymous warnings to leave. The threats escalate when his guest lodge is burned to the ground and an unidentifiable corpse is found in the charred ruins.

Detective Inspector Thomas Andreasson isn’t sure if it’s murder or a tragic accident. Until his friend attorney Nora Linde is drawn into the investigation. Nora’s emotional investment in Carsten’s fragile and fearful wife, Celia, is yielding a new level of suspicion: that the Jonssons are hiding more than anyone can imagine. Now Thomas and Nora must sift through the ashes of a puzzling crime and step into the shadows of a powerful family, whose deadly secrets are coming to light on Sandhamn.

Since 2008, Swedish writer Viveca Sten has sold more than 4.5 million copies of her Sandhamn Murders series, which includes Still Waters, Closed Circles, Guiltless, Tonight You’re Dead, In the Heat of the Moment, In Harm’s Way, and In the Shadow of Power. They have cemented her place as one of the country’s most popular authors, whose crime novels continue to top bestseller charts. Set on the tiny Swedish island of Sandhamn, the series has also been made into a Swedish-language TV miniseries seen by seventy million viewers around the world. Sten lives in Stockholm with her husband and three children, yet she prefers spending her time on Sandhamn Island, where she writes and vacations with her family. Follow her at www.vivecasten.com.

Marlaine Delargy lives in Shropshire in the United Kingdom. She studied Swedish and German at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, and taught German for almost twenty years. She has translated novels by many authors, including Åsa Larsson, Kristina Ohlsson, Helene Tursten, John Ajvide Lindqvist, Therese Bohman, Ninni Holmqvist, and Johan Theorin, with whom she won the Crime Writers’ Association International Dagger for The Darkest Room in 2010. Ms. Delargy also translated Guiltless, Tonight You’re Dead, In the Heat of the Moment, In Harm’s Way, and In the Shadow of Power in Viveca Sten’s Sandhamn Murders series.