Drowned, set in the idyllic countryside during a short-lived Swedish summer, gets under one's skin from the first page, creating an atmosphere of foreboding in which even the perfume of freshly picked vegetables roasting in the kitchen becomes ominous.

Marina has left behind her stalled relationship and floundering career in Stockholm to visit her sister in rural Skane, where she lives in a house full of books, gorgeous flowers and, as Marina soon learns, many secrets. Nothing is as it seems in this spellbinding novel of psychological suspense that combines hothouse sensuality with...