When a fisherman cuts a hole in a frozen lake and sees a face staring back from the ice, Stockholm detective Avril Dahl is sent north to a town that keeps its sins under snow.

Norrdal has three cops, long nights, and a body pulled from Frostsjön. The victim is a young reporter who knew too much and trusted the wrong person. With the autopsy days away and evidence vanishing under fresh snowfall, Avril has to rebuild the woman’s last hours from scratch, one small-town secret at a time.

The trail winds through a crowded bar, a source who only talks off the record, and a community that closes ranks. The boyfriend is grieving. The truth is not. And somewhere in the dark, a ghost from Avril’s past is still watching. If Avril can’t drag the truth to the surface before the next storm rolls in, the lake won’t be the only thing keeping its dead.

Cold Mercy is a tense, atmospheric Nordic thriller with a fierce heroine, a frozen-lake murder, and a town built on silence. Bundle up. This case cuts to the bone.