The Summer of Kim Novak

Håkan Nesser

One summer in Närke at the beginning of the sixties. “It’s going to be a hard summer”, says 14-year-old Erik’s father. And it is.

This is the summer when Kim Novak gives Erik his first glimpse of what life has to offer. But what is actually happening? Why was Edmund born with six toes on each foot? And what kind of book is it that Henry, Erik’s brother, is writing?

It is a summer when everything is charged up, everything escalates – until The Awful Thing happens, a fateful event that casts long shadows over the town on the plain, over Erik’s future and the people around him.

“Nesser sensitively probes the agonies and ecstasies of adolescence, making this an exquisite example of Nordic noir’s ability to reveal the darkest emotional depths beneath a cloudless summer sky.”

¿*starred* Publishers Weekly review