Under the Snow - Tapa dura

Police Constable Torsson reopens a seeming open-and-shut case of a man named Matti, killed over a mah-jongg dispute, when Matti's friend Dave comes to town and discovers a noose with human hair on it in the possession of English teacher Anna Ryd, which causes startling clues come to light as the seasons change.

lackwater, Kerstin Ekman made one of the most memorable English-language debuts by a European author in recent years.
Under the Snow opens with a phone call from an outlying village to police constable Torsson, and the news is of a mah jong party turned sour. A brawl broke out and a man named Matti was accidentally killed. When he questions the villagers, Torsson notices some minor discrepancies in their stories, but writes them off as unimportant. It is not until a few months later that he is forced to reopen the case: David, an eccentric artist and old friend of Matti, has arrived in town for a visit with no knowledge of the death. David has an uneasy feeling about the whole affair, and when he finds Anna Ryd, the town's beautiful English teacher, running away with a bag containing a noose with human hairs on it, he makes it his business to find out what happened. Gradually the facts of the case come to light and dark deeds which were covered up in the