Stalker
You thought you were alone. Think again.The groundbreaking fifth thriller in Lars Kepler’s bestselling series featuring Joona Linna. Perfect for fans of Stieg Larsson and Jo Nesbo.CLOSE THE CURTAINSA film arrives at Stockholm’s National Crime Investigation Department showing a woman in her own home, plainly unaware she is being watched. The police don’t take it seriously … until she is found murdered.LOCK THE DOORWhen the next video arrives, Detective Margot Silverman frantically attempts to identify the victim. But it’s already too late. Because at the time the video was sent, the killer was already inside their house…BEFORE IT’S TOO LATESoon Stockholm is in the grip of terror. Who will the Stalker target next?
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This is entirely a work of fiction. Any references to real people, living or dead, real events, businesses, organizations and localities are intended only to give the fiction a sense of reality and authenticity. All names, characters and incidents are either the product of the authorâs imagination or are used fictitiously, and their resemblance, if any, to real-life counterparts is entirely coincidental.
HarperCollinsPublishers
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Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2017
Copyright © Lars Kepler 2014
Translation copyright © Neil Smith 2016
All rights reserved
Originally published in 2014 by Albert Bonniers Förlag, Sweden, as Stalker
Lars Kepler asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
Cover design © Claire Ward HarperCollâinsPublishers Ltd 2017
Cover photography: girl © Stephen Carroll / Trevillion Images
Background © Christophe Dessaigne / Trevillion Images
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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Source ISBN: 9780007467853
Ebook Edition © MAY 2016 ISBN: 9780007467846
Version: 2018-09-24
Table of Contents
It wasnât until the first body was found that anyone took the film seriously. A link to a video clip on YouTube had been sent to the public email address of the National Criminal Investigation Department. The email contained no message, and the sender was impossible to trace. The police administration secretary did her job, followed the link, watched the film, and assumed it was a rather baffling joke, but nonetheless entered it in the records.
Two days later three experienced detectives gathered in a small room on the eighth floor of National Crime headquarters in Stockholm, as a result of that very film. The oldest of the three men was sitting on a creaking office chair while the other two stood behind him.
The clip they were watching on the wide computer monitor was only fifty-two seconds long.
The shaky footage, filmed in secret on a handheld camera through her bedroom window, showed a woman in her thirties putting on a pair of black tights.
The three men at National Crime watched the womanâs peculiar movements in embarrassed silence.
To get the tights to sit comfortably she took long strides over imaginary obstacles and did several squats with her legs wide apart.
On Monday morning the woman had been found in the kitchen of a terraced house on the island of Lidingö, on the outskirts of Stockholm. She was sitting on the floor with her mouth grotesquely split open. Blood had splattered the window and the white orchid in its pot. She was wearing nothing but a pair of tights and a bra.
The forensic post-mortem later that week concluded that she bled to death as a result of the multiple lacerations and stab-wounds that were concentrated, in a display of extraordinary brutality, around her throat and face.
The word stalker has existed since the early 1700s. In those days it meant a tracker or poacher.
