Sara Blædel books in order

The Scandinavian mystery meets Grand Theft Auto in this dark and humorous gangster tale.

Co-written by four of the best Danish crime writers in the business, In the Shadow of Sadd takes you on a bumpy ride through the grimy side streets of a gloomy city somewhere in Europe.

The city could be anywhere in Europe. Sadd could be any mob boss. There is a lot of shady business going on around him, and he has a hand in most of it. This scam, however, he must never know of.

This is the story about a dead body in the back of an old Chevy van, oceans of dirty money, the mentally unstable wife of a rich attorney, and a lot of striped aquarium fish.

In the Shadow of Sadd received a diploma from the Danish Crime Writers Association.

NB: Co-authored with Gretelise Holm, Lars Kjaedegaard and Steen Langstrup. Plot, idea and characters are by Steen Langstrup.

Already widowed by the age of forty, Ilka Nichols Jensen, a school portrait photographer, leads a modest, regimented, and uneventful life in Copenhagen. Until unexpected news rocks her quiet existence: Her father--who walked out suddenly and inexplicably on the family more than three decades ago--has died. And he's left her something in his will: his funeral home. In Racine, Wisconsin.

Clinging to this last shred of communication from the father she hasn't heard from since childhood, Ilka makes an uncharacteristically rash decision and jumps on a plane to Wisconsin. Desperate for a connection to the parent she never really knew, she plans to visit the funeral home and go through her father's things--hoping for some insight into his new life in America--before preparing the business for a quick sale.

But when she stumbles on an unsolved murder, and a killer who seems to still be very much alive, the undertaker's daughter realizes she might be in over her head...

NB: This book is also known as The Undertaker's Daughter.

A woman's murder is only the beginning as a daughter races to unravel the maze of secrets her father left behind--before she becomes the next victim.

After suddenly inheriting a funeral home from her father--who she hadn't heard from in decades--Ilka Jensen has impulsively abandoned her quiet life in Denmark to visit the small town in rural Wisconsin where her father lived. There, she's devastated to discover her father's second family: a stepmother and two half sisters she never knew existed. And who aren't the least bit welcoming, despite Ilka's efforts to reach out.

Then a local woman is killed, seemingly the unfortunate victim of a home invasion turned violent. But when Ilka learns that the woman knew her father, it becomes increasingly clear that she may not have been a completely random victim after all.

The more Ilka digs into her father's past, the more deeply entangled she becomes in a family drama that has spanned decades and claimed more than one life--and she may be the next victim...

Family drama, deadly secrets, and deception come to a head in this explosive conclusion...

Ilka Jensen's life is in chaos following the tumultuous events of Her Father's Secret. The funeral home she inherited after her estranged father's death is bankrupt. Her new business partner, Artie, lies unconscious in the hospital after a savage attack by mysterious assailants, and her father's second wife is in prison.

Then, just as Ilka learns a shocking revelation about her father, two menacing strangers turn up at the funeral home -- dangerous men who mean to draw her further into a world of secrets, betrayal, and murder.

In order to protect herself and those around her, Ilka sets off on a twisting journey to confront the truth about the man who abandoned her as a child. But the long-buried secrets of her father's past are more tangled and perilous than Ilka could ever imagine...

A young woman is found strangled in a park, and a male journalist has been killed in the backyard of the Royal Hotel in Copenhagen.

Detective Louise Rick is put on the case of the young girl, but very soon becomes entangled in solving the other homicide too when it turns out her best friend, journalist Camilla Lind, knew the murdered man.

Louise tries to keep her friend from getting too involved, but Camilla's never been one to miss out on an interesting story. And this time, Camilla may have gone too far...

Homicide detective Louise Rick chases a terrifying serial rapist who meets women on a popular online dating website.

An online flirtation can have horrific consequences, as Detective Louise Rick discovers when she is called to an idyllic Copenhagen neighborhood where a young woman has been left bound and gagged after a profoundly brutal rape attack.

Susanne Hansson met her rapist on a popular dating website. But the man is hiding behind a labyrinth of false pseudonyms, and neither Susanne--nor the police--have been able to trace his true identity. With the internet as his playground, the rapist will almost certainly strike again if Louise can't unmask him before it's too late.

Incredible suspense and a diabolical series of twists take Sara Blaedel's wildly popular series to new heights.

NB: This book also has two other titles, namely Blue Blood, and Call Me Princess.

Detective Louise Rick must race against the clock to stop a violent killer targeting immigrants...

It's clearly no ordinary drowning. When a young girl is pulled from the watery depths, a piece of concrete tied around her waist and two mysterious circular patches on the back of her neck, Detective Louise Rick is immediately called out to Holbaek Fjord.

Her name was Samra, and when the police learn that she was a member of Holbaek's sizeable Muslim immigrant community, they immediately assume it was an honor killing. Yet her mother insists Samra had done nothing dishonorable. Louise must navigate the complex web of family and community ties in the small town's tightly knit Muslim community as she hunts a killer...before he strikes again.

NB: This book is also known as Only One Life.

A journey to a new life or a prison of despair and death? A shocking murder on Copenhagen's idyllic streets and an abandoned child reveal a perverse criminal underworld that crosses international borders.

A young woman's body is found on the street with her throat slit, and the media is clamoring for the grisly details. Detective Louise Rick is investigating the gruesome murder when her friend Camilla Lind calls. Louise assumes it is because Camilla, a crime reporter, wants to be the first to hear of any juicy new developments. Instead, her distraught friend reveals that her ten-year-old son found an abandoned baby on his way to school.

As Louise digs deeper into the murder and the mysterious foundling, every clue uncovered points to organized human trafficking from Eastern Europe, run by ruthless gangsters who won't hesitate to kill anyone who gets in their way...

NB: This book is also known as Farewell to Freedom.

Louise gets a call from her son, Jonas. It's every parent's worst nightmare: A school party has ended in terrifying chaos after a group of violent teenagers forced their way into the building in search of alcohol and valuables.

Dashing to the scene, Louise discovers one of the students gravely injured--struck by a car while attempting to run for help. Now the girl's distraught mother, pushed to her emotional breaking point, will do anything to make those who hurt her daughter pay.

So when someone targets the gang members with a vicious attack, the girl's mother is the obvious suspect. But Louise can't shake the feeling that the case might not be as cut-and-dried as it first appears. Someone is lying--but who?

Detective Louise Rick encounters her most troubling case yet as she goes up against an extremely wealthy-but psychologically twisted-sociopath targeting vulnerable young women.

When the granddaughter of the wealthy Sachs-Smith family is kidnapped, Louise's skills as a trained negotiator are put to work. She is tasked with helping the desperate mother negotiate what soon turns into a life-or-death situation. The kidnappers will only exchange the deathly ill little girl for an infamous stained glass panel--known as the Angel of Death--that has been in the family for generations. But there's a problem... the Angel, worth millions, was recently stolen from the family home.

Racing against the clock as she matches wits with a criminal mastermind, Louise will be taken to the depths of human depravity. She's about to learn the hard way that money can buy absolutely anything. But will she be able to find the little girl before her time runs out?

The body of an unidentified woman has been discovered in a remote forest. A large, unique scar on one side of her face should make the identification easy, but nobody has reported her missing. 

Louise Rick, the new commander of the Missing Persons Department, waits four long days before pulling off a risky move: releasing a photo of the victim to the media, jeopardizing the integrity of the investigation in hopes of finding anyone who knew her.

The gamble pays off when a woman recognizes the victim as Lisemette, a child she cared for in the state mental institution many years ago. Lisemette was a "forgotten girl", abandoned by her family and left behind in the institution. But Louise soon discovers something even more disturbing: Lisemette had a twin, and both girls were issued death certificates more than thirty years ago.

Louise's investigation takes a surprising when it brings her closer to her childhood home. And as she uncovers more crimes that were committed--and hidden--in the forest, she is forced to confront a terrible link to her own past that has been carefully concealed.

Following an extended leave, Louise Rick returns to work at the Special Search Agency, an elite unit of the National Police Department. She's assigned a case involving a fifteen-year-old who vanished a week earlier. When Louise realizes that the missing teenager is the son of a butcher from Hvalsoe, she seizes the opportunity to combine the search for the teen with her personal investigation of her boyfriend's long-ago death...

Louise's investigation takes her on a journey back through time. She reconnects with figures from her past, including Kim, the principal investigator at the Holbaek Police Department, her former in-laws, fanatic ancient religion believers, and her longtime close friend, journalist Camilla Lind. As she moves through the small town's cramped network of deadly connections, Louise unearths toxic truths left unspoken and dangerous secrets.

A housewife is the target of a shocking, methodical killing. Shot with a hunting rifle through her kitchen window, the woman is dead before she hits the ground.

Though murdered in England, it turns out that the woman, Sofie Parker, is actually a Danish citizen who's been on the Missing Persons list for almost two decades--so Louise Rick is called on to the case. Then, in an unexpected twist, the police discover that Sofie had been reported missing eighteen years ago by none other than Eik, Louise Rick's police colleague and lover.

Impulsive as ever, Eik rushes to England, and ends up in jail on suspicion of Sofie's murder. Completely blindsided by Eik's connection to the case, Louise is thoroughly unsettled and sick with worry, yet she must set aside her own emotional turmoil if she hopes to find the killer in what will become her most controversial case yet...

A page-turning short story in which a journalist discovers that all is not as it appears in a seemingly idyllic tourist town.

Journalist Camilla Lind gets a frantic phone call: her father has been assaulted. He's the editor of a local newspaper in Skagen, and the brutal attack also left the paper's newsroom in flames. Could it be a response to the hard-hitting series he'd been printing about a real-estate racket run by wealthy out-of-towners targeting the quaint seaside tourist town?

As Camilla takes over the newspaper while he recovers, she quickly discovers that there are those in Skagen who would kill to keep their secrets safe....

A woman is haunted by a heartwrenching decision she made as a teenager...

Detective Louise Rick is on a beach in Thailand when the panicked call from her father comes through. Louise′s beloved brother, Mikkel, has attempted suicide. His wife, Trine, left him days earlier, walking out the door one day with no warning and leaving Mikkel devastated.

Louise rushes home to Osted, the small, insular Danish town where she grew up and where Mikkel still lives. But the more Louise learns about Trine—a devoted wife and the mother of two young children—and her state of mind in the days before she left Mikkel, the more Louise begins to wonder whether Trine really meant to leave him. Or whether something much darker may have taken place.

As the local police begin to suspect that Mikkel may have had a hand in Trine’s disappearance, Louise struggles to clear his name but is forced to confront some hard truths: Small towns always hide secrets. The past always comes back to haunt you. And lies are never harmless.