The Wolf and the Watchman

nThe Alienist set in eighteenth-century Stockholm: Brawny, bloody, intricate, enthralling--and the best historical thriller I've read in twenty years. --A.J. Finn, #1 bestselling author of The Woman in the Window nThrilling, unnerving, clever, and beautiful. --Fredrik Backman, #1 bestselling author of A Man Called Ove n nChilling and thought-provoking. Relentless, well-written, and nearly impossible to put down. --Kirkus Reviews (starred review) n nOne morning in the autumn of 1793, watchman Mikel Cardell is awakened from his drunken slumber with reports of a body seen floating in the Larder, once a pristine lake on Stockholm's Southern Isle, now a rancid bog. Efforts to identify the bizarrely mutilated corpse are entrusted to incorruptible lawyer Cecil Winge, who enlists Cardell's help to solve the case. But time is short: Winge's health is failing, the monarchy is in shambles, and whispered conspiracies and paranoia abound. n n Winge and Cardell become immersed in a brutal world of guttersnipes and thieves, mercenaries and madams. From a farmer's son who is lead down a treacherous path when he seeks his fortune in the capital to an orphan girl consigned to the workhouse by a pitiless parish priest, their investigation peels back layer upon layer of the city's labyrinthine society. The rich and the poor, the pious and the fallen, the living and the dead--all collide and interconnect with the body pulled from the lake. n n Breathtakingly bold and intricately constructed, The Wolf and the Watchman brings to life the crowded streets, gilded palaces, and dark corners of late-eighteenth-century Stockholm, offering a startling vision of the crimes we commit in the name of justice, and the sacrifices we make in order to survive.n