The Tunnel: A Danny Katz Thriller

Vallgren plumbs the depths of Sweden’s pornography industry in his searing second Danny Katz thriller (after 2016’s The Boy in the Shadows). Katz, a former military intelligence officer who was once a heroin addict, has a talent for languages and a sporadic craving for heroin. He’s 10 years clean and working as a security consultant and translator when he encounters Ramón, once his drug dealer and fellow petty criminal, and Ramón’s junkie girlfriend, Jenny. After Ramón and Jenny suddenly disappear, Katz embarks on a tortuous quest into their degraded present and his own tawdry past, encountering such ugly aspects of contemporary Sweden as rampant cross-border financial crimes, large-scale police corruption, the rising specter of neo-Nazism, and a thriving sex trade. With an old Balkan criminal comrade of his, Jorma, Katz discovers excruciating truths that bring them both to the brink of despair. The extremely dark subject matter may put some readers off. (June)