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An Irene Huss Investigation Series

Helene Tursten
Irene Huss is a former Ju-Jitsu champion, a mother of twin teenage girls, the wife of a successful chef, and a Detective Inspector with the Violent Crimes Unit in Göteborg, Sweden.
Detective Inspector Huss by Helene Tursten; Translated by Steven T. Murray
Who Watcheth by Helene Tursten
Protected by the Shadows by Helene Tursten; Translated by Marlaine Delargy

An Irene Huss Investigation Series : Titles in Order

Book 10
In this final installment of the internationally bestselling Irene Huss investigations, the Organized Crimes Unit pairs with the Violent Crimes Unit to help defuse the escalating tension between rival gangs in Göteborg, Sweden. But could there be a mole on the force who is thwarting their efforts?

The gang warfare that has been brewing in Göteborg is about to explode. A member of a notorious biker gang has been set on fire—alive. Even in a culture where ritual killings are common, this brutal assault attracts the attention of both Irene’s unit and the Organized Crimes Unit. Anticipating a counterattack, the two units team up to patrol the lavish party of a rival gang, but that doesn’t stop another murder from occurring just outside the event hall.

And that’s not the only thing going up in flames. Someone has planted a bomb under Irene’s husband’s car. Fearing for her family’s safety, Irene sends her husband and daughters into hiding and takes up residence at a colleague’s apartment. Still, she can’t shake the feeling that she is being stalked. Somehow, the gangs are always one step ahead of the police. Someone is leaking information. But who? Irene’s life depends on discovering the answer.
Book 9
“These days Scandinavian crime writers are thick on the ground. It’s nice to see that the women can be just as bloodthirsty as the men.” —The New York Times Book Review

He watches the women from the shadows. He has an understanding with them: As long as they follow his rules, they are safe. But when they sin, he sentences them to death.
 
A woman is found dead in a cemetery, strangled and covered in plastic. Just a few days before her death, the victim had received a flower, an unintelligible note, and a photograph of herself. Detective Inspector Irene Huss and her colleagues on the Violent Crimes Unit in Göteborg, Sweden, have neither clue nor motive to pursue, and when similar murders follow, their search for the killer becomes increasingly desperate. Meanwhile, strange things have been going on at home for Irene: first the rose bush in her garden is mangled, then she receives a threatening package with no return address. Is Irene being paranoid, or is she next on the killer’s list?
Book 8
It’s May and the snow has hardly melted in Göteborg, Sweden, but things are heating up quickly for Detective Inspector Irene Huss in the Violent Crimes Unit. The body of a teenage girl is found in the woods, naked and horrifically scarred. Then there’s the mummified body that is discovered bricked up in a chimney on a demolition site, not to mention the city’s ongoing problem with gang violence. With the sudden influx of cases and one detective out on maternity leave, everyone is stretched thin. To make matters worse, Irene feels more than a little intimidated by the new superintendent, Efva Thylqvist, who uses her sex appeal and smooth talking to bend the predominately male staff to her will.

Then a second young girl is found, wearing what appears to be the other half of the sexy lingerie set recovered near the first body. Fearing the two cases are linked and that the killer may strike again, Irene and her colleagues embark on a desperate hunt that takes them deep into a shadowy world of anonymous online predators and insecure teenage girls on a deadly quest for affirmation.
Book 7
A speeding BMW leaves a dead pedestrian in its wake and leads police to the corpse of a young girl in a cellar. Detective Inspector Irene Huss’s ensuing investigation draws her into the chilling world of sex trafficking.

Göteborg, Sweden: The high-speed chase of a stolen BMW takes a chilling turn when the two police officers involved witness a gruesome hit-and-run. When they finally recover the abandoned vehicle, search dogs are unable to trace the thieves, but they do uncover an entirely different horror: the half-naked corpse of a young girl in a nearby root cellar.

As Detective Inspector Irene Huss and her colleagues struggle to put the pieces together, they discover the man whose car was stolen—a retired police officer—is none other than the victim in the hit-and-run. Could it be a strange coincidence? Or is something larger at play? Meanwhile, the hunt for the girl’s killer leads Irene into the dark world of sex trafficking. An international criminal has arrived in Göteborg, and he’ll stop at nothing to expand his sinister operation.
Book 6
Detective Inspector Irene Huss hasn’t seen Sophie Malmborg for over fifteen years, but she’s still haunted by the strange young ballerina’s role in the fire that killed her stepfather. Why had she refused to speak to Irene and the other case workers? Could an eleven-year-old—even one as disturbed and aloof as Sophie—truly be capable of setting her own house on fire?
 
Irene’s questions resurface when Sophie, now a young adult, disappears, and the charred remains of a dancer are found in an abandoned warehouse. Irene has a startling realization that could shed light on the case that has been lingering in the back of her mind since the beginning of her career.
Book 5
Soho’s perennially popular Swedish crime series featuring Detective Inspector Irene Huss—jiujitsu champion, mother of teenage twin girls, and investigator on Göteborg Murder Squad—is back!
 
Three men have been shot in one of Göteborg’s most fashionable neighborhoods, sending Irene Huss and her colleagues on a goose chase through a tony world of expensive cars and fancy homes. All three victims seem to be tied to one person, the glamorous dot-com darling Sanna Kaegler-Ceder, but Sanna isn’t talking, even when her own life seems to be at stake.
Book 4
The fourth investigation in the nationally bestselling Swedish detective series

When one of his teachers fails to show up for work, a high school principal calls his friend on the Göteborg police force. To Detective Inspector Irene Huss’s surprise, her boss takes the
complaint seriously, even bringing her with him to a remote cottage in southern Sweden to investigate. There they discover the body of the teacher in question, victim of a rifle shot to the head. When they visit his parents to break the news, they find the couple dead in their bed, each shot between the eyes. The family’s sole surviving member, their daughter in London, is too grief-stricken for questioning. A swath of suspects arises as Irene investigates, but she has a hunch the answers to this case lie in England.
Book 3
The chilling third installment in the critically acclaimed Detective Inspector Huss series

A partial torso washes up on a Swedish beach, so mutilated that gender is only established through DNA testing. Detective Inspector Irene Huss of the Göteborg Police liaises with her Danish counterparts, who have a similar unsolved murder in their files. But when people connected to Irene start turning up dead, she fears she might be next.
Book 2
The fourth investigation in the nationaly bestselling Swedish detective series

Irene Huss is a former jujitsu champion, a mother of twin teenage girls, the wife of a successful chef, and a Detective Inspector in the Violent Crimes Unit in Göteborg, Sweden. And now she’s back in the gripping follow-up to Detective Inspector Huss. One nurse lies dead and another vanishes after a local hospital is hit by a blackout. The only witness claims to have seen Nurse Tekla doing her rounds, but Nurse Tekla died sixty years ago. Irene Huss has the challenge of disentangling wandering ghosts and complex human relationships to get to the bottom of this intriguing case.
Book 1
One of the most prominent citizens of Göteborg, Sweden, plunges to his death off an apartment balcony, but what appears to be a “society suicide” soon reveals itself to be a carefully plotted murder. Irene Huss finds herself embroiled in a complex and high-stakes investigation. As Huss and her team begin to uncover the victim’s hidden past, they are dragged into Sweden’s seamy underworld of street gangs, struggling immigrants, and neo-Nazis in order to catch the killer.

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