When 25-year-old Emelie is found murdered in her apartment in northern Stockholm, it feels like an open and shut case for detective Vanessa Frank. But there is something about the prime suspect that gives Frank the impression that they are missing something crucial.

Could the attack be linked to the rising digital network of men who want to punish women, the so-called ‘incels’? These ‘involuntary celibates’ live in the darkest corners of the internet and are united in their violent misogyny.

Femicide, originally published in Swedish as Råttkungen, is the second book to star Detective Vanessa Frank and her informant Nicholas Paredes. The pacing is breathless, the prose lean and the hard-boiled narrative unravels in a perfect procession of action, emotion and tension.

Narrated by Sofia Engstrand