The flame has a voice. And it's calling for blood.

Eleven-year-old Leo knows that fire is alive. He watched it take his mother, and now, he watches it follow him. In the shadows of his new home in Visby, the smell of turpentine and the crackle of burning plastic become his only companions. To Leo, the flames aren't just destruction-they are a face trying to whisper a secret about the dead children in his mother's old photographs.

As a series of suspicious fires begins to consume the neighborhood, Detective Inspector Maria Wern is tasked with finding the link between a child's trauma and a political assassination. The latest victim-the wife of a prominent politician-suggests a motive of harassment and power. But the clues point toward a tighter, more intimate circle: a group of friends who have been inseparable since high school.

The investigation takes a devastating turn when the evidence leads Maria to the one man she never wanted to suspect: Björn, the brave firefighter she has fallen deeply in love with. Maria is forced into a dance on glowing embers, caught between her loyalty to the love of her life, and her duty to stop a killer.

In this haunting fourteenth installment of the Maria Wern series, international bestseller Anna Jansson explores the dark side of greed and the terrifying ways people weaponize vulnerability. On Gotland, the fire is spreading-and this time, Maria may be the one who gets burned.

'Anna Jansson is in top shape in this year's book.' - Swedish Radio, P4 / SWE