Starred review from September 26, 2022
Mohlin and Nyström’s stellar sequel to 2021’s The Bucket List more than delivers on the first book’s promise. Former FBI agent John Adderley, the son of an American father and a Swedish mother, had lived in Sweden until he was 12; in the previous book, he moved there in 2019 after being wounded in a drug bust gone wrong. Under an alias “created by the Swedish authorities on behalf of the FBI’s witness protection program,” he’s become a respected member of the Karlstad CID. When John’s former partner from the FBI, Trevor, whom he thought dead, surfaces in Karlstad, he fears that he’s been betrayed and is being set up for assassination. John’s efforts to discover Trevor’s true motives in reconnecting coincide with his assignment to the high-profile murder of a tech executive who designed an innovative dating app. This nail-biter doesn’t let John off the hook for some hard choices he’s forced to make as the action builds to a jaw-dropping climax. Readers will be counting the days to see where these gifted writers take their lead next. Agent: Sara Tiala, Nordin Agency (Sweden).
November 1, 2022
After FBI agent John Adderley's undercover operation nabbed gangster Ganiru Okeke, the agent was relocated to Karlstad, Sweden, where he's known as CID detective Fredrik Adamsson. Now, Adderley learns that Ganiru's crew has tracked him to Karlstad just as he draws a high-profile case. Matchmaking-app mogul Stella Bjelke's body was found the morning after she planned to meet a secret online hook-up, and Adderley's only lead is security footage capturing a man leaving the scene. Adderley's attention is mainly on dealing with the threat from Ganiru, so he tamps down investigative instincts warning that Stella's twin sister, Alicia, left permanently scarred and psychologically fragile by a childhood accident, is hiding something. Too late, Alicia realizes that Stella's death is only the beginning of a killer's retribution, and her survival depends on Adderley's ability to dig beneath the murder's surface. Amid unrelenting, twist-propelled suspense, Mohlin and Nystr�m cultivate sympathy for outwardly prickly Alicia and Adderley, and readers will root for them to come out on top.
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