‘In The Dark’ by Lina Areklew

Published by Canelo Crime,
22 January 2026.
ISBN: 978-1-83598-388-1 (PB)

In The Dark is the second novel in Areklew’s series featuring Swedish detective Sofia Hjortén. She is heavily pregnant by Kaj, a much older colleague, after finishing a relationship with Fredrik Fröding, a situation to which neither she nor Fredrik are entirely reconciled. There are other tensions at her work, some caused at least partly by her pregnancy which is central to the whole story.

Ellie, the four-year-old daughter of property developer Anders Svensson and his wife Amanda, disappears overnight. Initially it is thought she may have wandered out into the snow, but increasingly it seems that she has been abducted. When there appears to have been a further abduction, Philip (a troubled friend of Fredrik) is found to have emotional ties to this person and was in the vicinity when she went missing. It is also discovered that Anders has financial worries and his marriage is in trouble. His pretty younger wife likes to be kept in the manner to which she has become accustomed. There is a suspicious accident. 

This is definitely Scandi Noir. There is barely a character in the story who is not suffering in one way or another with what these days is known as their mental health and/or has relationship problems. Fredrik was a survivor of a ferry disaster 26 years previously in which he lost the rest of his family. He has PTSD and a cocktail of pills following that, and for good measure he is currently recuperating from being the victim of a more recent shooting. Fredrik is also obsessed by the idea that his younger brother did not die in the ferry disaster. He is now seeing Ida, his former counsellor, and apparently on the verge of a relationship with her. Philip is autistic, agoraphobic and has panic attacks. Anders at one point seems to be heading for a mental breakdown. Someone makes a suicide attempt. Kaj is married to Mette, both in their sixties. They have not had children and Mette, fully aware of Kaj and Sofia if not fully reconciled to them even though any relationship has long since ended, is doing her best to muscle in on the baby, much to Sofia’s displeasure. Sofia doesn’t like Kaj despite having his baby. Her father is dead and she has little to do with her mother. I could go on, but you get the idea. The gloom is relieved by one or two sympathetic characters, including Tord, Sofia’s father confessor, and (rather unexpectedly, given events) Ida’s parents. 

The story is propelled along by short interpolations from an unnamed character. Little by little we are made to understand the role of this person in the novel. The action moves along swiftly in a race against time to an extremely dramatic conclusion at Sofia’s house on Ulvön Island. There is one occasion when what seemed to me an obvious line of enquiry is not pursued and is never mentioned again, even though it probably contributed to a death. And there are also one or two strands towards the end of the novel which don’t appear to add up, unless I’ve missed something (always possible, of course). These observations do not detract from a convincing if mostly sombre and snowbound novel which is full of atmosphere. I’m sure that lovers of Scandi Noir will approve.
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Reviewer: David Whittle 

Lina Areklew was born in Stockholm 1979 and grew up at the High Coast. Today she lives part time in a house northwest of Stockholm and part time in a croft outside Örnsköldsvik. After a career as a project manager within telecommunications, she studied literature and now works as a freelance copy editor.  Her debut novel Death in Summer is set in Stockholm and on the island Ulvön outside Örnsköldsvik. 

David Whittle is firstly a musician (he is an organist and was Director of Music at Leicester Grammar School for over 30 years) but has always enjoyed crime fiction. This led him to write a biography of the composer Bruce Montgomery who is better known to lovers of crime fiction as Edmund Crispin, about whom he gives talks now and then.