Swedish Mysteries

The Department of Sensitive Crimes takes on three extremely strange cases. First, the detectives investigate how and why a local business owner was stabbed...in the back of the knee. Next, a young woman's imaginary boyfriend goes missing. And, in the final investigation, Varg must determine whether nocturnal visitations at a local spa have a supernatural element.

Eighteen-year-old Stella Sandell stands accused of the brutal murder of a man almost 15 years her senior. She is an ordinary teenager from an upstanding local family. What reason could she have to know a shady businessman, let alone to kill him? Stella’s father, a pastor, and mother, a criminal defense attorney, find their moral compasses tested as they defend their daughter, while struggling to understand why she is a suspect.

Maud is an irascible 88-year-old Swedish woman with no family, no friends, and...no qualms about a little murder. Ever since her darling father's untimely death when she was only 18, Maud has lived in the family's spacious apartment in downtown Gothenburg rent-free, thanks to a minor clause in a hastily negotiated contract. That was how Maud learned that good things can come from tragedy. Now in her late 80s, Maud contents herself with traveling the world and surfing the net from the comfort of her father's ancient armchair. It's a solitary existence, and she likes it that way.

On Midsummer's Eve, three role-playing teens dressed in 18th-century garb are shot in a secluded Swedish meadow. When one of Inspector Kurt Wallander's most trusted colleagues, someone whose help he hoped to rely on to solve the crime, also turns up dead, Wallander knows the murders are related. But with his only clue a picture of a woman no one in Sweden seems to know, he can't begin to imagine how.

Rebecka Martinsson is heading home to Kiruna, the town she'd left in disgrace years before. A Stockholm attorney, Rebecka has a good reason to return: her friend, Sanna, whose brother has been horrifically murdered in the revivalist church his charisma helped create. Beautiful and fragile, Sanna needs someone like Rebecka to remove the shadow of guilt that is engulfing her, to forestall an ambitious prosecutor and a dogged policewoman.

An advertising executive receives a postcard from a friend and casually appropriates the image for an advertisement. What he doesn’t realize is that included in the scene is a mutant sheep with a star on its back, and in using this photo he has unwittingly captured the attention of a man who offers a menacing ultimatum: find the sheep or face dire consequences.

In a Stockholm city park, police discover the hideously abused body of a young boy. Detective Superintendent Jeanette Kihlberg heads the investigation, battling an apathetic prosecutor and a bureaucratic police force unwilling to devote resources to solving the murder of a nameless immigrant child. But with the discovery of two more mutilated children's corpses, it becomes clear that a serial killer is at large.

Sara Vallén och hennes team från Lundapolisen får i uppdrag att utreda en trafikolycka, där två kolleger i Malmö omkommit. Gruppen behöver mer resurser, och Malva Gran tas in, och ytterligare en polis som begärt förflyttning. Niklas Verja rör upp känslor hos dem alla, och särskilt Malva påverkas. Hon säger ingenting, men Sara anar oråd. Ju mer de gräver i de två kollegernas dödsolycka desto mer får de känslan av att något inte stämmer. Undersökningen av bilen visar att någon skjutit på höger däck som punkterats. Och i de två omkomna polisernas närhet finns människor som inte borde finnas där.

Jost Härjfeldt, en ärrad operatör och officer, håller på att återhämta sig från en svår skottskada och skilsmässa. När han är i begrepp att återgå till tjänst hittas ett sargat lik. Jost blixtinkallas och hans chef, överste Örnvreten, på den militära underrättelseenheten Sektionen, misstänker att det kan finnas en koppling till ett, även inom försvaret, okänt specialförband. Den långa vägen tillbaka och det nya fallet sätter igång en inre process i honom. Hur lever han sitt liv?

När överläkare Pia Fjällstedt försvinner under mystiska omständigheter, blir det inte vilket fall som helst för Sundsvallspolisen. Åtminstone inte för kriminalinspektör Sofia Waltin, eftersom Pia Fjällstedt är hennes faster. Dessutom har Sofias pappa länge haft en konflikt med sin syster och hamnar högt upp på listan över dem som kan tänkas ha med försvinnandet att göra. Också Sofias kollega Johan Axberg får problem att skilja yrkesroll från privata bekymmer när hans nya flickvän blir misshandlad av sin exman.