Three Seconds

Piet Hoffman is the best undercover operative in the Swedish police force, but only one other man is even aware of his existence. When a drug deal he is involved in goes badly wrong, he is faced with the hardest mission of his life: to infiltrate Sweden's most infamous maximum security prison. Detective Inspector Ewert Grens is charged with investigating the drug-related killing. Unaware of Hoffman's real identity, he believes himself to be on the trail of a dangerous psychopath. But he cannot escape the feeling that vital information pertaining to the case has been withheld or manipulated. Hoffman has his insurance: wiretap recordings that implicate some of Sweden's most prominent politicians in a corrupt conspiracy. But in Ewert Grens they might just have found the perfect weapon to eliminate him... Intelligent, gripping, brutal, Three Seconds is the latest thriller from Roslund and Hellström, the heirs apparent to Stieg Larsson and Henning Mankell as masters of Scandinavian crime.(P)2011 Quercus Editions Ltd