By all accounts, Carl and Roy Opgard are doing quite well for themselves. Or at least they’re doing as well as can be expected in a small town like Os. Carl manages the area’s swanky and successful spa and hotel, while Roy runs a nearby gas station and harbors grand plans to build it out into an entire amusement park, complete with a roller coaster. But when news breaks about a new highway to be built nearby, bypassing Os and leaving the town cutoff and isolated, it’s clear that something has to be done...even if the methods are bound to be dirty. Fortunately, Carl and Roy have experience with just that kind of work. Meanwhile, the town sheriff has gotten his hands on new technology that will enable him to take a deeper look at a slate of unsolved murders from years past --- including that of his own father. And just as the sheriff reopens his investigation, the death toll begins to climb. 

Famed for his deft characterization, hair-raising suspense and shocking twists, Jo Nesbø’s dexterity with the dark corners of the human heart is on full display in these inventive and enthralling stories. A detective with a nose for jealousy is on the trail of a man suspected of murdering his twin; a bereaved father must decide whether vengeance has a place in the new world order after a pandemic brings about the collapse of society; a garbage man fresh off a bender tries to piece together what happened the night before; a hired assassin matches wits against his greatest adversary in a dangerous game for survival; and an instantly electric connection between passengers on a flight to London may spell romance, or something more sinister.

Roy and Carl, brothers from a small mountain town, have spent their whole lives hiding from the darkness in their pasts --- Roy by staying put and staying quiet, and Carl by running far away. Roy believed his little brother was gone for good. But Carl has big plans for his hometown. And when he returns with a mysterious new wife and a business opportunity that seems too good to be true, simmering tensions begin to surface and unexplained deaths in the town’s past come under new scrutiny. Soon powerful players set their sights on taking the brothers down by exposing their role in the town’s sordid history. But Roy and Carl are survivors, and no strangers to violence. As the town’s long-buried past begins to surface, Roy will be forced to choose between his own flesh and blood and a future he had never dared to believe possible.