Katarina Wennstam is one of Sweden's most widely read authors, with a background as a crime journalist for SVT. As a front figure in the Swedish debate on women's rights, Wennstam has been instrumental in several important legislative changes.

Her books have been loved by readers and literary critics, and her first book, Flickan och skulden, is now considered a cult book. It was nominated for the August Prize for best non-fiction book and awarded the Vilhelm Moberg Scholarship, as well as the Swedish Bar Association's Journalism Prize.

Her new series Sekelskiftesmorden (The Stockholm Murders), marks a turning point in Wennstam's writing, without shifting the focus from women's issues. The first book, Dead Women Don't Forgive, was released in 2023. It was followed by Dead Man's Woman and Lucia Is Dead, published in 2024 and 2025. The standalone novel Olga’s Book was published in May 2026, with the fourth book of the series, Mother Blood, following in autumn 2026.

There will be at least two more books in the series, as well as another three standalone novels, each centring on a different main character.

Agent: Moa Alfvén

Published Bookmark, October 2026
Genre Historical suspense
Pages 440

Rights sold
All rights available

The fourth book in the Stockholm Murders series.

Stockholm, June 1899. The city is bathed in the lush greenery of early summer, and the primary school pupils are about to set off on their long-awaited holidays. But play and swimming are not in store for everyone; many children must instead work to help make ends meet for their families – or are left to fend for themselves, roaming the city’s streets.

The summer idyll is shattered when a young boy is found dead in a suitcase at a public bathhouse at Riddarfjärden. The police dismiss the death as a prank gone wrong and direct their suspicions towards the gangs of street urchins who plague the townspeople with their criminal antics. When the four women – Olga, Hildur, Edith and Fredrika – take it upon themselves to investigate the death, they question whether it is merely an unfortunate end to some boys’ games. Could there be a greater cruelty behind the tragedy?

Mother Blood is the next instalment in the Stockholm Murders series. In her distinctive and skilful style, Katarina Wennstam depicts Stockholm at a time of development and renewal. A city of contrasts, where vulnerability and poverty stand side by side with major changes and the promise of flourishing opportunities.

Published Bookmark, May 2026
Genre Historical suspense
Pages 224

Rights sold
All rights available

London, 1888. Travelling with her husband, Superintendent Gabriel Laurell, Olga is looking forward to visiting the global metropolis for the first time. London is magnificent, but in its shadows lurk poverty and a brutality she could never have imagined. Rumours of a notorious woman-killer are spreading fear amongst Londoners, and when yet another victim – who turns out to be Swedish – is found murdered in an alleyway, the hunt for the killer intensifies. In the newspapers, he is known as Jack the Ripper.

For Olga, the journey turns out to be something quite different from what she had imagined. In her own quest to discover the identity of the murdered woman, she begins to examine her own position and her views on the unfortunate women she encounters. When she also gets to know Michael Aldwych, a dashing detective inspector at Scotland Yard, the journey becomes even more life changing.

Olga’s Book is the first out of four standalone, character-driven novels centred on each of the main characters in the Stockholm Murders series: Olga, Fredrika, Edith and Hildur.

Published Bookmark, October 2025
Genre Historical suspense
Pages 414

Rights sold
Danish: Cicero, Gyldendal Denmark
Finnish: Gummerus
German: Penguin Verlag
Icelandic: MTH Publishing
Norwegian: Cappelen Damm
Film and TV: SF Studios

The third instalment in the Stockholm Murders series.

Four women forever bound together by a dark secret in turn-of-the-century Stockholm.

In a snow-covered Stockholm in December 1897, Fredrika is rushing to her newly opened detective agency in Södermalm. Edith has had a tough year and is starting over as a retoucher in a photo studio. The whole city is getting ready for Christmas.

But Lucia night is cold and harsh despite all the lights. When a young woman from Dalarna, who has come to the capital to work, disappears without a trace, it becomes a race against time to find her. Fredrika and the other women on Krukmakar Street suspect that there is more to the disappearance than the police believe. The search for the missing woman leads them to dark secrets, broken promises, and violent death.

Reviews

“Wennstam writes vividly, compellingly, and meticulously about the poverty, confinement, and prejudices of turn-of-the-century Stockholm, but also about the fighting spirit, pride, and longing for freedom. The novel is a pure delight in its portrayal of society in general and its portraits of women in particular, and the prose is both driven and exceptionally well written. Rating: 5/5.”
BTJ

Awards & nominations

Lucia Is Dead won the 2025 Adlibris Prize for Best Crime Novel of the Year, and was a finalist in 2026 Storytel Awards for Best Crime Novel.

Published Bookmark 2024
Genre Historical suspense
Pages 428

Rights sold
Danish: Cicero, Gyldendal Denmark
Finnish: Gummerus
German: Penguin Verlag
Icelandic: MTH Publishing
Norwegian: Cappelen Damm
Film and TV: SF Studios

The second part of the Stockholm Murders series.

Four women forever bound together by a dark secret.

In the early summer of 1897, Fredrika Nilsdotter realises her dream and opens her own detective agency under a male alias. When the infamous theatre director Georg Valentin suddenly plunges to his death from the Katarina lift, Fredrika realises that the high-profile murder may be the opportunity she has been waiting for to prove herself. To do this, she needs the help of her three confidants: the widow Olga, the seamstress Hildur and the maid Edith. Soon they find themselves entangled in a dangerous game of chance as they search for answers in a murder story whose plot goes back many years.

Reviews

“Katarina Wennstam writes as if through a wide-angle lens. She takes such a broad view of historical Stockholm that it is impossible not to make comparisons with Strindberg and Fogelström. But the comparison is still unfair. Wennstam is an author in her own right. As always, she writes from a woman's perspective, using female eyes to depict and criticise society – as much a male society as a class society – from the bottom up.”
Bengt Eriksson, Borås tidning

Awards & nominations

Dead Man's Woman won the 2024 Adlibris Prize for Best Suspense Novel of the Year and is also the winner of the 2025 Storytel Awards.

Dead Man’s Woman won the Swedish Crimetime Award for Best Crime novel of the Year 2025.

Published Bookmark 2023
Genre Historical suspense
Pages 443

Rights sold
Danish: Cicero, Gyldendal Denmark
Finnish: Gummerus
German: Penguin Verlag
Icelandic: MTH Publishing
Norwegian: Cappelen Damm
Film and TV: SF Studios

At the end of the 19th century, Stockholm undergoes major changes. There is a high rate of immigration and the city's inhabitants are dying en masse. Diseases are rampant, women are trying to get rid of unwanted foetuses, and accidents are frequent.

Four women from different social classes all live in the same building in Södermalm, south of Stockholm. They are brought together by a terrible death in the common courtyard, during the chilly New Year's night between 1895 and 1896. It soon becomes clear that the deceased woman had tried to carry out an illegal abortion.

Dead Women Don't Forgive is a depiction of the harsh conditions faced by women in the late 19th century. With irresistible language and furious drive, Katarina Wennstam depicts a world teeming with maids, immoral women, abusive men, interwoven with vivid descriptions of both the city and its exquisite costumes. Solid research lies behind Katarina Wennstam's most passionate book project ever.

Awards & nominations

Dead Women Don't Forgive won the 2024 Swedish Crimetime Award for Best Crime Novel of the Year.