How can he forget the past when it's out to kill him? Former special-ops soldier and now an analyst for the think tank Vektor, Max Anger would kill to move on from the scars of his past-if only for the sake of Pashie, his girlfriend and fellow operative, who wants out of the battle zone. For them, a normal life is just one more dangerous uncertainty. Especially now that evil is hitting closer to home. Sofia Karlsson of the Swedish police wants Max's help in a high-profile and high-stakes murder investigation: the hunt for a serial killer stalking the streets of Stockholm, who's eliminating his victims in gruesome and tantalizingly clever ways. When Max discovers his connection to two of the crime scenes, his investigation uncovers what could be the most shameful episode in Sweden's history. The deeper he gets, the harder it becomes to distance himself from the dark sins of the past-and to secure a future with the woman he loves. For Max, and for the killer, the countdown to a terrifying end begins.

Global intrigue, espionage, and mystery from a thrilling new international voice. Max Anger is a man on the edge. The former fighter in an elite band of special-ops soldiers in Sweden, Anger is haunted by battle scars, a childhood spent in the Stockholm archipelago, and his own mysterious family past. Now behind a desk at Vektor, a think tank conducting research on Russia, he's met his match-and fallen in love-with fierce fellow operative Pashie Kovalenko. Like all of Vektor, she's set her sights on the tenuous future of her country. When Pashie goes missing in Saint Petersburg, Anger rushes headlong into a volatile Russia, where a new president is about to be elected in the midst of a technological revolution. At the movement's heart is a start-up Pashie had been investigating, one surrounded by rumors of organized crime and corruption. But the truth is more shocking than Anger could have ever expected. Now time is running out for Pashie. Racing through a storm of violence and deception, Anger gets ever closer to a sensational secret-and to the Russian madman with dreams of restoring one of the cruelest regimes in the history of the world.