Red Wolf

Marklund's superb fifth novel featuring Stockholm journalist Annika Bengtzon (after Prime Time) finds Annika, who's no longer officially on the crime beat at the Evening Post, working as an independent reporter, mostly pursuing terrorism stories, particularly relating to Communist protests in the 1960s and '70s. While she's investigating in the northern town of Luleå, a fellow journalist and source dies in a hit-and-run accident, which turns out to be the first in a series of murders. Annika traces these murders to a deadly act of sabotage on a Swedish military base in 1969, and begins to suspect that the man behind the present-day slayings and the army attack—known only by his code name of "Ragnwald"—has returned to kill again. Meanwhile, Annika's marriage falters as she and her husband juggle two careers and two children. Marklund (The Postcard Killers with James Patterson) imbues Annika with a fierce intensity without sacrificing her vulnerability. (Feb.)