When Inspector Gunnar Barbarotti returns to work after a personal tragedy, his boss hands him a cold case to ease him back in. But the case doesn’t stay cold for long . . . The Axe Woman is the fifth Inspector Barbarotti novel from bestselling author HÃ¥kan Nesser.

Five years previously, Morinder simply vanished. His partner claimed he had travelled abroad, never to return. But Arnold’s partner was Ellen Bjarnebo: one of Sweden’s most notorious killers, having served over ten years in prison for killing her first husband and dismembering his body with an axe. And when Barbarotti seeks to re-interview Ellen, she is nowhere to be found . . .

With neither a body nor a prime suspect, Barbarotti must use all the ingenuity at his disposal. And as the cold case begins to thaw and he finally begins to make progress, he realises that nothing about Ellen Bjarnebo can be taken for granted . . .

A trip behind the Iron Curtain would change their lives forever . . .

It begins in 1969. Six young people arrive in Uppsala, Sweden. Different circumstances push the three young couples together and, over the course of a few years, they become friends. But a summer trip through Eastern Europe changes everything, and when their time at Uppsala University is over it also signals the end of something else.

Years later, a lecturer at Lund University is found dead at the bottom of a cliff in the woods close to Kymlinge. And chillingly, it is the very same spot where one of the Uppsala students died thirty-five years before.

Detective Inspector Gunnar Barbarotti takes on this ominous case of history repeating itself, and is forced to confront an increasingly grave reality.

The Lonely Ones is the fourth novel of HÃ¥kan Nesser’s quintet about Inspector Gunnar Barbarotti.

At fifty-nine years old, Valdemar Roos is tired of life. Working a job he hates, with a wife he barely talks to and two step-daughters he doesn’t get on with, he doesn’t have a lot to look forward to. Then, one day, a winning lottery ticket gives him an opportunity to start afresh.

Without telling a soul, he quits his job and buys a hut in the remote Swedish countryside. Every day he travels down to this man-made oasis, returning each evening to his unsuspecting wife. Life couldn’t be better, until a young woman arrives in paradise . . .

Anna Gambowska is a twenty-one-year-old recovering drug addict. On the run from the rehab centre she hated and an abusive relationship she can’t go back to, all Anna’s prayers are answered when she comes across a seemingly vacant hut in the Swedish woodland. But it’s not long before Anna’s ex discovers her location, and an incident occurs that will mar the lives of both Anna and Valdemar forever.

Inspector Barbarotti doesn’t take much interest when a woman reports her husband as missing. That is, until a dead body is found near the missing man’s newly bought hut, and Mr Roos becomes the number one murder suspect . . .

The Secret Life of Mr Roos is the third novel in HÃ¥kan Nesser’s Inspector Barbarotti quintet.