The third book in Alexander McCall Smith's new DETECTIVE VARG series

Perplexing, unfathomable and perhaps unimportant, the cases that Malmo's Department of Sensitive Crimes take on will test them to their limits.

Life - and crime - is not always as it seems for Ulf Varg and the other fearless detectives in Malmo's Department of Sensitive Crimes. There are always surprising new cases to take on, and the latest batch is no exception. And that's not to mention Ulf's struggle to contain his feelings for his colleague Anna Bengsdotter. All in all, things are distinctly difficult in Malmo, and it seems up to Ulf and the Department to set them right.

'McCall Smith's continuing warm-heartedness makes Ulf such unfailingly good company' Reader's Digest

'Like AA Milne meets Karl Ove Knausgaard' Financial Times

'Wonderfully soothing and relaxing' Daily Telegraph

"Alexander McCall Smith is talented and prolific . . . His prose is leisurely. You feel the rights words come to him naturally without painful search . . . he is a reassuring writer " - Yorkshire Post