by David Hewson
Then the three of them went off to see the airline desk. The case was quickly despatched to wait for them at the other end.
Thirty minutes to departure. A quick meal. Through security. Onto the half-empty plane.
Two seats by the window. No one in the aisle.
As they taxied down the runway Natalya’s head fell on her arm. Hanna held her, forced herself not to cry.
Amsterdam had been an illusion. She’d fooled herself into believing she could cope with that life. But it was all a lie. Perhaps that was why the monster came for them. As a reminder of the eternal truth: you burned the world or the world burned you.
She might have burned Pieter Vos as well. That would have been so easy. But cruel. He burned himself. And cruelty wasn’t in her nature any more than his.
They had the money. Maybe she could be a hairdresser. Or a teacher. Something . . . anything but the dead, drab nightmare they’d suffered before.
The plane charged down the runway, rose into the black sky, turned over Amsterdam.
Somewhere below lay the bloody corpse of a Turkish crook, a grim discovery that would wait two days to be found by an unsuspecting cleaner.
In another part of the city, unknown to Hanna Bublik, the bodies of Henk and Renata Kuyper stiffened in the cold of their first-floor dining room as the winter breeze stole past twinkling Christmas lights through a shattered window. Unseen until a curious Lucas Kuyper comes round the following morning, puzzled that his calls go unanswered.
The fugitive the security services knew as Khaled slumbered in a car driving at a sedate pace on the motorway into Belgium.
In his dilapidated houseboat Pieter Vos lay wide awake in bed, staring at the ceiling, Sam snoring at his feet.
Curious as ever, Natalya peered out of the window at the lights beneath them. The Canal Ring, Herengracht, Keizersgracht and Prinsengracht, stood out like an illuminated girdle round the city.
Hanna thought of the man with his little dog and a solitary life on the water.
Vos knew she was fleeing. And still he let her go.
There was a kindness to be had in the city. But you had to discover it before the monster found you. And there she’d failed.
‘Where are we going?’ asked a sleepy young voice next to her.
‘South,’ she said.
The girl gave up on the window and snuggled beneath her arm.
South.
Anywhere but here.
The Killing
by
DAVID HEWSON
Based on the original screenplay by Søren Sveistrup
Through the dark wood where the dead trees give no shelter Nanna Birk Larsen runs . . . There is a bright monocular eye that follows, like a hunter after a wounded deer. It moves in a slow approaching zigzag, marching through the Pineseskoven wasteland, through the Pentecost Forest.
The chill water, the fear, his presence not so far away . . .
There is one torchlight on her now, the single blazing eye. And it is here . . .
Sarah Lund is looking forward to her last day as a detective with the Copenhagen police department before moving to Sweden. But everything changes when a nineteen-year-old student, Nanna Birk Larsen, is found raped and brutally murdered in the woods outside the city. Lund’s plans to relocate are put on hold as she leads the investigation along with fellow detective Jan Meyer.
While Nanna’s family struggles to cope with their loss, local politician, Troels Hartmann, is in the middle of an election campaign to become the new mayor of Copenhagen. When links between City Hall and the murder suddenly come to light, the case takes an entirely different turn.
Over the course of twenty days, suspect upon suspect emerges as violence and political intrigue cast their shadows over the hunt for the killer.
Praise for The Killing
‘As gripping as the TV series. It will keep you pinned to the very last page’
Jens Lapidus
‘David Hewson should be commended for writing such a page-turner of a book . . . The Killing has enough twists and turns to satisfy not only any avid follower of the series but also readers that are coming to it first time around’
shotsmag.co.uk
The Killing II
by
DAVID HEWSON
Based on the original screenplay by Søren Sveistrup
Thirty-nine steps rose from the busy road of Tuborgvej into Mindelunden, with its quiet graves and abiding bitter memories. Lennart Brix, head of the Copenhagen homicide team, felt he’d been walking them most of his life.
Beneath the entrance arch, sheltering from the icy rain, he couldn’t help but recall that first visit almost fifty years before. A five-year-old boy, clutching the hand of his father, barely able to imagine what he was about to see . . .
The bark of a dog broke his reverie. Brix looked at the forensic officers, white bunny suits, mob hats, marching grim-faced down the rows of graves, towards the space in the little wood where the rest of the team was gathering . . .
It is two years since the notorious Nanna Birk Larsen case. Two years since Detective Sarah Lund left Copenhagen in disgrace for a remote outpost in northern Denmark.
When the body of a female lawyer is found in macabre circumstances in a military graveyard, there are elements of the crime scene that remind Head of Homicide, Lennart Brix, of an occupied wartime Denmark – a time its countrymen would rather forget.
Brix knows that Lund is the one person he can rely on to discover the truth. Though reluctant to return to Copenhagen, Lund becomes intrigued with the facts surrounding the case. As more bodies are found, Lund comes to see a pattern. She realizes that the identity of the killer will be known once the truth behind a more recent wartime mission is finally revealed . . .
The Killing III
by
DAVID HEWSON
Based on the original screenplay by Søren Sveistrup
Autumn was giving up on Copenhagen, getting nudged out of the way by winter. Grey sky. Grey land. Grey water ahead with a grey ship motionless a few hundred metres off shore.
Lund hated this place . . . She looked across the bleak water at the dead ship listing at its final anchor. Ghosts still hung around her, murmuring sometimes. She could hear them now.
When a body is discovered down at the docks in Copenhagen, Detective Inspector for homicide, Sarah Lund, is contacted by old flame Mathias Borch from National Intelligence. Borch fears that what at first appears to be a random killing may in fact mark the beginning of an assassination attempt on Prime Minister Troels Hartmann.
The murder case draws attention towards the shipping giant, Zeeland, and its billionaire CEO Robert Zeuthen. But when Zeuthen’s nine-year-old daughter Emilie is kidnapped, the investigation takes on a different dimension. It soon becomes clear that her disappearance is linked to the murder of a young girl in Jutland some years earlier.
Hartmann is in the middle of an election campaign, which is all the more turbulent due to the mounting financial crisis, and he needs Zeeland’s backing.
Lund must make sense of the clues left by Emilie’s abductor before it’s too late.
But can she finally face the demons that have long haunted her?
Carnival for the Dead
by
DAVID HEWSON
In Venice the past was more reticent. Beyond the tourist sights, San Marco and the Rialto, it lurked in the shadows, seeping out of the cracked stones like blood from ancient wounds, as if death itself was one more sly performance captured beneath the bright all-seeing light of the lagoon.
It’s February, and Carnival time in Venice. Forensic pathologist Teresa Lupo visits the city to investigate the mysterious disappearance of her beloved bohemian aunt, Sofia. But from the moment she is greeted off the vaporetto by a masked man dressed in the costume of The Plague Doctor, Teresa starts to suspect that all is not well.
The puzzle deepens when a letter reveals a piece of fiction in which both Sofia and Teresa appear. Even more st
range are the links to the past which gradually begin to surface. Are the messages being sent by Sofia herself? Her abductor? Or a third party seeking to help her unravel the mystery? The revelation is as surprising and shocking as Sofia’s fate. And Teresa herself comes to depend upon the unravelling of a mystery wrapped deep inside the art and culture of Venice itself.
Praise for Carnival for the Dead
‘Atmospheric and engaging . . . the central mystery is every bit as intriguing as ever and the unravelling of the solution has the satisfying precision that we know the author delivers so adroitly’
Daily Express
‘Complex and cunning’
Sunday Telegraph
‘The Byzantine complexity of Carnival for the Dead is a measure of Hewson’s inventiveness’
Sunday Herald
The House of Dolls
by
DAVID HEWSON
Where dark secrets lurk behind every door . . .
Anneliese Vos, sixteen-year-old daughter of Amsterdam detective, Pieter Vos, disappeared three years ago in mysterious circumstances. Her distraught father’s desperate search reveals nothing and results in his departure from the police force.
Pieter now lives in a broken-down houseboat in the colourful Amsterdam neighbourhood of the Jordaan. One day, while Vos is wasting time at the Rijksmuseum staring at a doll’s house that seems to be connected in some way to the case, Laura Bakker, a misfit trainee detective from the provinces, visits him. She’s come to tell him that Katja Prins, daughter of an important local politician, has gone missing in circumstances similar to Anneliese’s.
In the company of the intriguing and awkward Bakker, Vos finds himself drawn back into the life of a detective. A life which he thought he had left behind. Hoping against hope that somewhere will lay a clue to the fate of Anneliese, the daughter he blames himself for losing . . .
Praise for The Killing
‘Turns television gold into literary gold’
Daily Telegraph
‘For those who missed watching Sarah Lund and the Danish police in action, I believe they will get a great deal of pleasure from reading about them’
The Times
‘A very fine novel, which is more of a re-imagining of the original story than a carbon copy – and with the bonus of a brand new twist to the ending’
Daily Mail
‘David Hewson’s literary translation . . . allows the characters more room to breathe . . . Hewson’s greatest achievement is that it’s compelling reading’
Observer
‘Not just a novelization. Hewson is a highly regarded crime writer in his own right; he spent a lot of time with the creators of the original to ensure that he did not offend its spirit and mood, and he has provided his own, different solution to the central murder mystery’
Marcel Berlins, The Times
‘A fast-paced crime novel that’s five-star from start to finish’
Irish Examiner
‘The book is an excellent read in which the author manages to dig deeper into the characters without having to rewrite their original television characterization. For those who haven’t seen the series, this is a very cleverly constructed and beautifully written crime drama; for those who already know the ending, a new twist awaits’
Irish Times
Praise for the Nic Costa series
‘David Hewson has a superb sense of pace and place, his characters feel real, and he writes a page-turner detective story like no other’
Choice
‘The running heroes Costa and Peroni, like all the best fictional detectives, become more rounded and interesting with every episode . . . I was hooked’
Literary Review
‘If you haven’t already discovered this brilliant series featuring Nic Costa and a cast of Roman detectives, you have a treat in store’
Toronto Globe & Mail
‘The exciting story is laced with Roman history . . . A very intelligent and enthralling book, with a complex plot expertly handled’
Tangled Web
‘A thrilling tale of vengeance . . . chilling to the core . . . The plot develops at a steady pace, with the author’s captivating descriptions of long-forgotten passageways and temples, and his skill in creating a sinister undertone keeping you hooked from the off. A highly dramatic tale for those who like a sprinkling of culture with their crime thriller’
Woman
‘Very enjoyable Italian mysteries . . . cleverly worked out and sharply written. Hewson’s take on the secretive city [of Venice] is uncomfortable and sinister’
Literary Review
‘[Hewson] is a talented writer with the gift of creating a good, old-fashioned page-turning thriller. His characters shine with real depth and conviction and the plot is breathtakingly imaginative. A superb read’
Reading Post
About the Author
Former Sunday Times journalist David Hewson is well known for his crime-thriller fiction set in European cities. He is the author of the highly acclaimed The Killing novels set in Denmark and the Detective Nic Costa series set in Italy. The Killing trilogy is based on the BAFTA award-winning Danish TV series created by Søren Sveistrup and produced by DR, the Danish Broadcasting Corporation.
Hewson’s ability to capture the sense of place and atmosphere in his fiction comes from spending considerable research time in the cities in which the books are set: Copenhagen, Rome, Venice and now Amsterdam.
Also by David Hewson
The Killing
The Killing II
The Killing III
Nic Costa series
A Season for the Dead
The Villa of Mysteries
The Sacred Cut
The Lizard’s Bite
The Seventh Sacrament
The Garden of Evil
Dante’s Numbers
The Blue Demon
The Fallen Angel
Carnival for the Dead
Other titles
The House of Dolls
The Promised Land
The Cemetery of Secrets
(previously published as Lucifer’s Shadow)
Death in Seville
(previously published as Semana Santa)
First published 2015 by Macmillan
This electronic edition published 2015 by Macmillan
an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR
Basingstoke and Oxford
Associated companies throughout the world
www.panmacmillan.com
ISBN 978-1-4472-4619-0
Copyright © David Hewson 2015
Jacket images © Shutterstock
The right of David Hewson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, organizations and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, places, organizations or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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