The Comforter (Tröstaren)

Karin Wahlberg

 

A woman walking home after an evening with her friends suddenly hears loud crying from the cemetery shadows. As she pulls out her cell phone to call for help, a figure leaps out in front of her and she feels a sudden burning pain in her stomach before everything goes dark.

Veronika Lundborg is on call when the woman with a gunshot wound is wheeled in. The operation appears to be successful, but only a few hours later the woman is found dead in her hospital bed.

Veronika is reported to the authorities – did she make a bad judgment which cost the woman her life, or is there something more bestial behind this death?

 

360 pages

 

Rights sold

Denmark: People's Press

France: Editions du Toucan

Germany: Random House/Btb

The Netherlands: The House of Books

Norway: Juritzen forlag

Poland: Swiat Ksiazki

Spain: Mosaico

Sweden: Wahlström & Widstrand, bonnier Audio

 

Reviews

"She writes extremely well about the hospital, operations, medical treatments and about the people there and their everyday life."

VG (Norway)

 

"The book has drive and suspense."

Sandefjordsblad (Norway)

 

"She skillfully depicts the hectic, often dramatic, everyday life in a hospital (which she knows well since she works at Lund University Hospital) and she also knows how to convey human relationships."

DAST

 

"Karin Wahlberg knows how to write believable characters and places and, as a reader, you find yourself transported to a large hospital among doctors, nurses and relatives, wondering what has really happened here."

Laura

 

"The Comforter’s strength lies in Karin Wahlberg’s skillful use of the puzzle mystery’s ingredients, well-planted in a realistic story. Another thing I like is that she lets other people be seen and developed in the course of her tale."

Gefle Dagblad

 

"Wahlberg writes insightfully about hospital workers’ anguish and soul-searching after an unexplained death, and contributes to a discussion on the ethics of care which is one of the most original ever seen in a mystery novel…."

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