KATARINA WENNSTAM
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.
Photo: Caroline Roosmark
Agent: Moa Alfvén
LUCIA IS DEAD
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.
DEAD MAN’S WOMAN
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.
DEAD WOMEN DON’T FORGIVE
