A whodunnit with a thousand suspects

Camilla Lackberg, HarperCollins, R285 The Girl in the Woods ★★★★★

Camilla Lackberg has amassed millions of devoted followers with her series of crime novels set in the Swedish fishing village of Fjällbacka — which actually exists in the real world. It has fewer than 1,000 permanent residents and is deathly quiet in winter, but in summer turns into a playground for Scandinavian tourists.

The Girl in the Woods, Lackberg’s 10th novel featuring author Erica Falck and her police detective husband, Patrik Hedstrom, is set in summer, when the influx of holidaymakers creates a wider pool of suspects.

A four-year-old girl has been murdered, her body found in the same place as that of a similar victim 30 years previously. The two teenage girls who were accused of the earlier crime are now adults and conveniently present. One is a Hollywood film star who has returned to her home town for the first time since the incident. The other is married to a sociopathic

UN soldier who is on home leave.

Then there are the Syrian refugees, whose safe asylum in Sweden does not come with a warm welcome from all its citizens. And there are the local high-school kids with too much time on their hands and the usual adolescent problems. And then — because Lackberg loves to weave ancient history into modern mystery — there is a woman who lived in these parts in the 17th century, when literal witch hunts were all the rage.

Lackberg cleverly connects multiple tales of violence and ostracism in a narrative that climbs to a terrifying crescendo, but there is much light relief in the lives of her extended family of regular characters. Even police chief Bertil Mellberg displays flashes of charm between being his usual bumbling and graceless self. He is also the recipient of the best put-down in the book: when he enquires whether refugee children eat cinnamon buns, detective Paula Morales replies tartly: “Of course they do. They’re from Syria, not outer space.” Sue de Groot @deGrootS1