Two young people have disappeared near the city of Malmö. As if the mountain had swallowed them. The police team led by Inspector Leo Asker tries to find the couple, especially the girl, who is the daughter of a prominent man in the city and that is always an incentive to intensify the work of the security forces.
Leo is intelligent, strong (physically and mentally) and tireless, but he has enemies inside and outside the Police. So he removes her from her case and gives her the typical kick up, a promotion so she doesn't bother him. Although in this case it is a kick down, because the inspector becomes head of the Missing Cases department, located in the basement of the police station, a unit that no one knows and whose mission is more than diffuse.
In this inhospitable new destination, the indefatigable Asker discovers some things that may help solve the case of the mountain boys. Anders de la Motte was a police officer in Stockholm and then head of security for a technology multinational in Denmark, but he had always wanted to write.
“When I was little I lived on a farm, there was no cable television or internet or anything like that and the great distraction was reading. Also, my mother was a librarian, she kept the keys to the library and on weekends we went there. We were alone with the books. It was paradise,” explains De la Motte in a videoconference interview with La Vanguardia.
Young Anders read and wrote, but decided to join the Police. “I didn't get to participate in any murder investigation, because I was only there for eight years, but I did see things that have been useful for my novels, for example, I know how police officers talk, what they look like, and how they conduct investigations.”
There De la Motte also discovered the department of Lost Cases, or “Lost Souls”, which “may have other names, but exists in almost all countries, because someone has to take charge of strange matters, conspiracy calls and things.” So". “These units are usually made up of police officers who have been removed from the front line for multiple reasons, but who have an advantage: more freedom to investigate, because they are not subject to rigorous control.”
De la Motte left his well-paid job and began writing, to fulfill his life's dream, when his wife supported him. He has published several novels in his country and now the series by Leo Asker and the Lost Souls department begins with The Mountain Killer (Planeta), which has just been published in Spanish.
A novel that follows in the footsteps of the best Swedish black literature, by Henning Mankell and Stieg Larsson. Especially Larsson, whom De la Motte admires because he “knew how to do something new by combining the traditional murder investigation story with an action plot and also introducing a strong female protagonist.”
Lisbeth Salander, Larsson's Millennium character, is petite, androgynous, and fond of piercings. Leo Asker is tall and in top physical shape, but they both share strength and intelligence. And De la Motte has in common with Larsson an agile way of writing and very intriguing plots. The Mountain Killer is read in one sitting just as it was with The Men Who Didn't Love Women.
