Roughly a year has passed since the dramatic events in the little town of Ormberg and Manfred Olsson is back in Stockholm, working as an investigator. When his two-year-old daughter Nadia falls from a window and ends up in a coma, is a moment that will come to define the rest of Manfred’s life.
In another part of town, 18-year-old Samuel Stenberg lives with his hardworking single mother, Pernilla. Samuel is a good guy at heart, but a combination of bad luck, naiveté, and laziness has brought him down a criminal path and finally his mother has had enough and throws him out. Samuel’s charm has always been able to get him out of a pickle, but when he finds himself in the middle of a massive drug deal gone wrong, he is forced to make a run for it.
With nowhere to go, and with both a drug lord’s gang and the police at his heels, Samuel needs desperately to remain underground. He ends up in a quiet little town in the Stockholm archipelago where he starts working as a personal assistant for the severely handicapped son of a wealthy family. The father is constantly away but the mother, Rakel, seems kind. And it doesn’t hurt that she is also very attractive. Soon, strange things begin to happen in the quaint old house. One night, Samuel wakes up from loud noises and screaming. He decides to investigate, but when he hears footsteps he quietly retreats to his room…
When the body of a young drug dealer washes ashore on an island in the archipelago, Manfred and his colleagues are called to the scene. As another body turns up in the water the investigation gets more and more complicated and Manfred sees no other option than to turn to psychological profiler Hanne Lagerlind-Schön.
The Hideout is a dark tale of psychological illness, narcissism, and severed lives. Here, Camilla Grebe once again excels in plot twists that grab readers by the throat. Set against a sweltering summer backdrop, Grebe’s authentically flawed characters come alive and a chilling tale unravels to reveal evil lurking in the most serene of surroundings…
Extra Materials
Denmark, Lindhardt og Ringhof
Finland, Gummerus
France, Calmann-Lévy
The Netherlands, Cargo
Italy, Einaudi / Stile Libero
Norway, Gyldendal
Poland, Sonia Draga
UK, Bonnier Publishing
Author
Reviews
“Incredibly well-written and relentlessly thrilling. Grebe proves she’s a master of creating tension – what horrifying anxiety can be worse than seeing your own little child disappear? […] We meet both well established characters and new acquaintances, and it’s apparent that behind the portrayal of drug trafficking and the work of the police lies a great deal of research. Everything is authentically portrayed, which makes it even more nerve-wracking. The milieu is intriguing and the character portrayals are nuanced. The Hideout is a book that will appeal to readers looking for a first rate crime novel.”
BTJ (SE)
“The publisher calls the books ‘thrilling’ in their press release, but that doesn’t even begin to cover it. Because in Camilla Grebe’s latest novel icy eeriness echoes through the Swedish landscape. […] Brilliant, ominous, frightening.”
Femina, 6/6 (DK)
“The last book by the brilliant Camilla Grebe, After She’s Gone, was named Best Crime Novel of the Year by the Crime Writer’s Academy in 2017. In the new book The Hideout, she uses a different narrative technique. The protagonists take turns telling the story in separate chapters. At the centre is 18 year old Samuel who has found himself on a slippery slope. In the end, his deeply religious mother Pernilla is forced to act against everything she’s ever believed in. Psychologically arresting and incredibly disturbing.”
Upsala Nya Tidning (SE)
“Camilla Grebe’s books are impossible to put down.”
Oskarshamns-Tidningen (SE)
“The new master of Scandinavian crime. […] A tale with suspense on many levels. Camilla Grebe is an excellent writer, she gives life to the different characters, we care for them. And she’s a clever crime writer who never ceases to surprise. This is a really good story.”
Adresseavisa, 6/6 (NO)
“Camilla Grebe impresses once again. This new stand alone sequel to last year’s best Nordic Crime Novel, After She’s Gone, is both suggestive, suspenseful, and spot-on. The perspectives shift, but all characters have voices and expressions of their own. About young men who disappear and strong motherly love, with many surprising twists. Who is really good and who is evil?”
Tara (SE)
“Grebe has really grown into a singular storyteller with a cast of characters that is equally unique.”
Folkbladet (SE)
“A frightening and breathtakingly thrilling novel.”
Lokalavisen Nordsjælland (DK)
“Grebe is back with the novel Interia – and her great talent becomes apparent here. […] Camilla Grebe’s tale is written with the kind of great opening that makes it explicit that this is a writer! She writes literature disguised as suspense – not the other way around as is often the case with others.”
Fyens Stiftstidene, 5/6 (DK)
“Grebe has established herself as one of the great writers of the genre, and I’m convinced she’ll stay in the top. I appreciate that her plots stand on their own, even if some characters return. They [the novels] can definitely be read separate from each other. She’s good at making fictitious milieus come alive and create characters who feel like actual people. They are likable even though they don’t always act the way you expect them to.”
Dast Magazine (SE)
“[The Hideout] is something as rare as a quiet and funny page-turner. [Grebe] has complete control of the events that take place. She knows how to spread them out with rigour and precision. But the best part is how she manages to convey the difficult situations people can find themselves caught up in – universal human problems – in such a convincing and moving way. In that sense she has more in common with Kerstin Ekman’s Blackwater than for example, Jan Guillou’s exaggerated Hamilton books. More literature than action. […] In Camilla Grebe, Scandinavian crime has gotten yet another big name to join the many that has come before. She puts the strong emotions on the line.”
Information (DK)