#BlogTour ‘The Hideout’ by Camilla Grebe

About the book…

The Hideout is an eerie psychological thriller from the award-winning Swedish bestselling author Camilla Grebe.

When 18-year old Samuel finds himself at the centre of a drug deal gone wrong, he is forced to go underground to escape the police and an infamous drug lord. Seeking refuge in a sleepy town in the Stockholm archipelago, he takes a job as a personal assistant to a disabled boy. But when Samuel moves in with the beautiful Rachel and her son Jonas in the remote house by the sea, he soon realizes that nothing is quite what it seems . . .

Meanwhile, the bodies of young men have been washing ashore in the archipelago and investigator Manfred Olsson fears that they have a killer on the loose.

Set against a sweltering summer backdrop, Camilla Grebe’s flawed characters come alive as a chilling tale unravels to reveal evil lurking in the most serene of surroundings.

My thanks to Tracy Fenton of Compulsive Readers for the blogtour invite, and publishers Zaffre books for the gifted e-arc review copy of ‘The Hideout’ which is out from 28th September in e-book , audiobook and paperback formats.

This is an absolutely blinding novel, it is dark, shot through with strong characters and a driving plot which is underpinned with a Nordic sensibility. The sparseness of the text , when combined with the internal, first person dialogue creates a dark, almost claustrophobic atmosphere that hits the reader right from the very start. Plunging you into an emotionally taught situation, before you realise that the lead character, Manfred, is also the investigative police detective, has you seeing him as a man, a father, a husband first. This adds layers of pathos to a highly dramatic, and distressing scene, where his infant daughter falls from the window of his flat.

Whilst she is placed in a coma, to allow her brain injuries time to heal, the stasis which Manfred and wife, Afsaneh are thrust into, is broken by the heralding of a series of deaths which need Manfred’s assistance in deciphering. It is typically dark, that something worse than a child in a coma-the bloated remains of young men washing up in Stockholm-can be used as a distraction from the never ending watching of Nadja’s vital signs.

The flip side to Manfred’s narration is that of Samuel, a young boy who has fallen in with a crowd who make easy money from drug running. However, nothing this easy and ‘fun’ to arrange, drug runs and the lifestyle which accompanies it comes easily. Luxury comes at a price, and this case, Gucci trainers are absolutely not worth what Samuel paid for them.

His guilt riddled mother, traumatised by her own mother’s abandonment, has missed what has gone on under her nose, and, as a single, deprived woman herself, her acceptance back into her father’s life, and that of her local congregation, comes with much soul searching, blame and anguish.

The need to do ‘the right thing’, has resulted in catastrophic consequences-abandonment, poor parenting, passing down of the burden of guilt wrapped up in religious idolatry- and Her, Pernilla’s actions, whilst not intentional comic, have deadly consequences.

With Samuel on the run from losing a valuable package, thanks to his mother, and Manfred hot on his heels, it is a race against time to find somewhere safe to go to ground.

But what of the place you think you can settle in, turns out to be the most dangerous place of all?

The stark realism is reflected in the brutal nature of the landscape ,’The Hideout’ is  an Iceland set drama which is a moral tale with a slow burn aesthetic which I would highly recommend to any fan of Nordic Noir!

About the author…

Camilla Grebe was born in 1968 in Stockholm, Sweden. She holds a degree from the Stockholm School of Economics and was a cofounder of audiobook publisher Storyside.

Together with her sister Åsa Träff she has written five celebrated crime novels about psychologist Siri Bergman. The first two books in the series were nominated for Best Swedish Crime Novel of the Year by the Swedish Crime Writers’ Academy.

Grebe has also written the popular Moscow Noir trilogy with Paul Leander-Engström.

With ‘The Ice Beneath Her’, Grebe breaks out as a solo author with a unique voice and a masterful handle on suspense.

Twitter @camillagrebe @Tr4cyF3nt0n @Zaffre