Some Kind of Peace
THE AMERICAN DEBUT OF
THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER
FROM SWEDISH SISTERS
CAMILLA GREBE AND ÅSA TRÄFF
PRAISE FOR
SOME KIND OF PEACE
“
Some Kind of Peace
is a fast-moving psychological thriller whose plot unfolds from the author’s expert and sensitive consideration of character. Dr. Siri Bergman, haunted by her own loss, finds herself in the midst of danger, the threat coming from a number of possible suspects. Camilla Grebe and Åsa Träff spin a tantalizing story of menace and longing in this provocative and richly rendered novel.”
—LEE MARTIN,
author of
Break the Skin
and
The Bright Forever
“Grebe and Träff break new ground in the Scandinavian crime literature genre, and they do it brilliantly. Using unique insights and experiences from their own professional backgrounds, they tell a smooth-paced yet utterly intriguing story about man’s inability to let go of the past.”
—KRISTINA OHLSSON,
author of
Unwanted
It seems so idyllic
.
But something is out of place
.
In the neatly raked gravel parking area is a
dazzlingly clean black Jeep. The paint of
the Jeep reflects a clematis with large pure
white blossoms climbing up a knotted old
apple tree. Someone is lying under the low
trunk and crooked branches of the tree.
A young woman, a girl.…
SIRI BERGMAN
is a thirty-four-year-old psychologist who works in central Stockholm and lives alone in an isolated cottage out of the city. She has a troublesome secret in her past and has been trying to move on with her life. Terrified of the dark, she leaves all the lights on when she goes to bed—having a few glasses of wine each night to calm her nerves—but she can’t shake the feeling that someone is watching her through the blackened windows at night.
When the lifeless body of Sara Matteus—a young patient of Siri’s with a history of drug addiction and sexual abuse—is found floating in the water near the cottage, Siri can no longer deny that someone is out there, watching her and waiting. When her beloved cat goes missing and she receives a photo of herself from a stalker, it becomes clear that Siri is next. Luckily, she can rely on Markus, the young policeman investigating Sara’s death; Vijay, an old friend and psychology professor; and Aina, her best friend. Together, they set about profiling Siri’s aspiring murderer, hoping to catch him before he kills again.
But as their investigation unfolds, Siri’s past and present start to merge and disintegrate so that virtually everyone in her inner circle becomes a potential suspect. With the suspense building toward a dramatic conclusion as surprising as it is horrifying, Siri is forced to relive and reexamine her anguished past, and finally to achieve some kind of peace.
Also by Camilla Grebe and Åsa Träff
More Bitter Than Death
Before You Die
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2009 by Camilla Grebe and Åsa Träff English language translation copyright © 2012 by Paul Norlen
Originally published in 2009 in Sweden by Wahlstöm & Widstrand
Published by agreement with Nordin Agency
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Free Press Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.
First Free Press hardcover edition July 2012
FREE PRESS and colophon are trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Poem (
pages 7
,
314
) © Erik Blomberg, translated by Paul Norlen. Permission granted by ALIS, Sweden.
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Designed by Carla Jayne Jones
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Grebe, Camilla.
[Någon sorts frid. English]
Some kind of peace : a novel / Camilla Grebe and Åsa Träff ; translated from
the Swedish by Paul Norlen.—1st Free Press hardcover ed.
p. cm.
I. Träff, Åsa. II. Norlen, Paul R. III. Title.
PT9877.17.R43N3413 2012
839.73'8—dc23
2011051757
ISBN 978-1-4516-5459-2
ISBN 978-1-4516-5462-2 (ebook)
TO MUM AND DAD
Gustavsberg, a Suburb Of Stockholm, October 22, Afternoon
Don’t be afraid of darkness,
for in darkness rests the light.
We see no stars or planets
without the dark of night.
The darkness of the pupil
is in the iris round,
for all light’s fearful longing
has darkness at its ground.
Don’t be afraid of darkness,
for in it rests the light.
Don’t be afraid of darkness;
it holds the heart of light
.
—Erik Blomberg
SOME KIND
OF
PEACE
It seems so idyllic.
An insidiously calm, dew-damp morning. The rays of the sun slowly but relentlessly take possession of the art nouveau building’s clean plaster façade, triumphantly embracing it with their indifferent heat and giving it a sheen the night had hidden.
As if nothing had happened.
As if this summer morning heralded a day like any other. A day full of life: sweaty bodies on bicycles; suppressed giggles in front of the ice cream stand by the harbor; steaming, sunburned shoulders; clumsy summer sex as light-blue twilight seamlessly turns to daybreak; the nauseating smell of white wine and lemonade in the pine needle–carpeted edge of the forest north of the pizzeria; the cold water of the lake against skinny child bodies with ribs that seem ready to burst out of their cages, through the soft, paper-thin, milk-white skin.
Gawky teenage boys swim races to the island and back, outlined like pale frog people, amphibious sailing vessels, against the water’s saturated blue-brown darkness. They howl as they jump off the rock. The air is filled with the aroma of grilled meat and the sound of distant motorboats.
Mosquitoes. Wasps. Insects with no name: in your hair, in your mouth, on bodies, itchy, sweaty bodies.
As Swedish as it gets.
A summer without end.
As if nothing had happened.
• • •
Even the building appears indifferent. Heavy and listless, it sits in the lush garden, bedded in leafy, dew-covered greenery. Its massive three-story-high body reaches toward the blue of the brightening summer sky.
The plaster has not flaked in a single spot. The gray-green paint that covers the windowsills and doors is fresh and still glossy. There are no cracks or dust in the leaded, stained windowpanes with their coiling organic flower patterns. The roof is covered with old emerald-green copper plate, the kind roofers no longer use.