Terrific Swedish thriller

Two amazing coincidences, both involving a Swedish police officer named Hannah Wester, are the only things that mar Hans Rosenfeldt's thriller Cry Wolf (2020). Amazing coincidences do happen, of course, and we might be willing to accept that the people who find a large quantity of drugs and cash belonging to a Russian mob are the nephew of Hannah's husband and his wife. The second coincidence near the end of the story is much harder to swallow, even as it adds significantly to the novel's impact.

Still this is a terrific, fast-paced novel that makes me eagerly await the next book in an apparent Hannah Wester series set in the small, far northern Swedish town of Haparanda.

The mob sends a young female assassin named Katja (among other aliases) to reclaim both the drugs and the cash and to kill whoever took it after the mob's courier was killed in a hit-and-run near Haparanda. Rosenfeldt switches rapidly from one point of view to another, keeping the reader, like the characters themselves, very much on edge. Even the town itself has a point of view.

As you would expect, the novel builds to an exciting climax, with just enough mystery left over to suggest another installment.