Alkuteos: Kun pimeys peittää valkeat yöt.

LAPLAND after the war. In all of Finland, there was no district more dismal and godforsaken than that vast expanse of wilderness in the north known as Lapland. It is a hot summer’s night in the early 1960s. As the village of Tervola sleeps, someone chooses evil over good, and later in the night the body of a young woman is sunk in the river flowing through the peaceful parish. Forty years later in a small riverside wood, a married couple unearths something that draws the attention of Detective Inspector Markus Edelmann and Detective Sergeant Sonja Friberg from the city of Rovaniemi’s NBI. But before the enquiry has even properly begun, a cold-blooded murder takes place in broad daylight. The perplexed NBI investigators learn soon that the Russian border is nearer than one would have imagined and more open than ever. Secrets unlocked across Finland lead the enquiry team across the western border all the way to southern Sweden. On returning to the mystique of Lapland, the police officers’ lives are placed in danger when the evil-minded strive to protect themselves in the unexpected conclusion of the case. This Scandinavian-based crime story, inspired by true events, gradually exposes dark areas of the human psyche as well as those of our post-war history. As the first work by Sebastian Lindell, it also reveals how Markus Edelmann, the Finnish son of a German World War II soldier, became the most renowned Detective Inspector in Lapland!