The Darkest Day

The Darkest Day is the first novel in the five part Inspector Barbarotti series from renowned Swedish crime author Hakan Nesser.It’s December in the quiet Swedish town of Kymlinge, and the Hermansson family are gathering to celebrate a big family birthday. But beneath the guise of happy festivities, tensions are running high, and it’s not long before the night takes a dark and unexpected turn . . .Before the weekend is over, two members of the Hermansson family are missing, and it’s up to Inspector Barbarotti – a detective who spends as much of his time debating the existence of God as he does solving cases – to determine exactly what happened on that darkest day, and unravel a web of sinister family secrets in the process . . .

Reviews of The Darkest Day

Fiendishly complex . . . Just the thing for a winter afternoon * Metro * A top-notch investigation into some grisly goings-on, courtesy of his latest crime-fighting duo Barbarotti and Backman * Riveting Reads * In an exemplary translation by Sarah Death, this tangled tale of guilt and betrayal whets the appetite for translations of the other Barbarotti novels — Barry Forshaw * Financial Times * Told with wry humour and compassion, Nesser has four more Barbarotti stories to come – cherish them all — Geoffrey Wansell * Daily Mail * Barbarotti has to disentangle years of bad blood and resentment to get to the heart of a thrillingly complex case — Joan Smith * Sunday Times *