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Christian Rönnbacka’s popular Hautalehto series is known not only for the expertise showcased in the text but also for the distinctive sense of humour of the police officer portrayed. The Hautalehto series is one of the most sold Finnish crime series with 650.000 copies sold.
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Hautalehto 1: Operation Trojan (2012)
The police are monitoring an international organised crime ring and receive information about a massive drug shipment that is about to arrive in Finland. In order to successfully pass the drugs on to the buyers, the criminal organization must find a secure cache and a reliable stasher for its cargo. The police decide to resort to extreme means and launch a covert operation.
Detective Senior Sergeant Antti Hautalehto is given a false identity and embarks on a mission where even one wrong decision may ruin the game. The Ostrobothnian man knows the dangers of infiltrating a crime gang, where revenge is blood-red and a traitor ends up as a tattoo on the skin of their killer.
Hautalehto 2: Cruel (2013)
A little girl’s underwear disappears from a laundry room. Soon the first girl is kidnapped. A professional who leaves no trace, neither on the scene nor on the victims, who are returned after the perpetrator gets what they want. The abductions of girls sow terror and make the national news, and the police are under pressure up to ministerial level.
Antti Hautalehto is still recovering from his previous tough assignment as a henchman for an international drug league, and this case is not an easy one either. As the head investigator, the pressure is on him to prevent further victims – at all costs.
Hautalehto 3: Building #31 (2014)
In a woodland area, an empty grave is found. When more pits are uncovered, Antti Hautalehto and his team set out to find out what it is all about. An unknown body is discovered in one of the pits. The police are baffled, and the investigation becomes even more complicated when a group of witnesses emerge who clearly know more about the case than they are willing to tell.
All the clues lead to Building #31 of the old psychiatric hospital in Nikkilä. Its shadows hide a silent past, the scars of which are still visible today. The head investigator, Hautalehto, has a skilfully woven mystery to solve, and ghosts, chained in grief, to confront.
Hautalehto 4: Freezing Embrace (2015)
A night in Porvoo at Christmas time. A man in his twenties staggers home from a party. In the morning, his girlfriend reports him missing. The tracks end at the banks of the Porvoonjoki River, and the case is recorded as a standard disappearance.
A short time later, another man is found in the river, about to drown. Chief Inspector Hautalehto begins to suspect that the disappearances of the young men are not typical drowning deaths, but something else. Hautalehto and his team are forced to dive into the freezing depths to find the truth.
Hautalehto 5: All That Glitters (2016)
Chief Inspector Antti Hautalehto’s peaceful summer in Porvoo is interrupted when the National Bureau of Investigation begins investigating the activities of a local youth gang splurging large sums of money. The investigation turns international when members of the gang start disappearing abroad without a trace.
The plot grows even more fatal in an instant when an experienced professional killer appears in Porvoo with the intention of leaving behind a pile of corpses. Suddenly, the peaceful sanctuary provided by the small town threatens to turn bloody, unless Hautalehto with his team manages to solve the case in time. The fifth instalment in the series takes the reader into the deathly maelstrom of international crime.
Hautalehto 6: The Raven of Death (2017)
The cry of a raven ruptures the silence above a lime quarry in the forests of Sipoo. A group of youths lost in the quarry make a shocking discovery when a man’s severed arm emerges from deep among the rocks.
Chief Inspector Antti Hautalehto is confronted with the most bizarre case of his career when he investigates the body dug out of the quarry. The modus operandi, the location of the body, and the motive of the perpetrator are all shrouded in mystery, and the investigation seems hopeless. When a surprising clue is found, Hautalehto ends up putting together a chilling puzzle, the final piece of which could spell his doom.
Hautalehto 7: The Lighthouse (2019)
Chief Inspector Antti Hautalehto switches off and heads to the island of Bodö in the outer archipelago with his friend Lars.
Nearby, the 150-year-old Söderskär lighthouse looms over the buildings of the barren rocky island. The light from the lighthouse had been permanently extinguished thirty years earlier, but now a beam of light suddenly splits the night sky, revealing a body floating in the sea. Hautalehto, who is investigating the crime, soon discovers that death has sailed to the archipelago for good.
Hautalehto 8: Fall Foliage (2020)
Antti Hautalehto has long been planning a hiking trip to Lapland with his friend Lars. His holiday takes an unexpected turn when he is assigned to shepherd a Chinese billionaire and their entourage in the rugged landscapes of northern Finland.
While fishing and panning gold with the Chinese, Hautalehto has no idea the group is followed by a group of mercenaries planning a kidnapping. Hautalehto will have to put all his skills on the line to survive in the harsh wilderness with a heavily armed enemy at his heels.
Hautalehto 9: The Time of Fire (2021)
An unprecedented wave of violence has swept across the capital region. Young immigrant men have been shot dead, and the situation is beginning to resemble gang warfare in big cities. To prevent the situation from getting worse, the National Bureau of Investigation decides to set up a task force for which a leader is needed.
Antti Hautalehto, looking for a new direction in his career, decides to seize the opportunity. Henna Björk, a Finnish-Iraqi from the Gothenburg Police, acts as a consultant for the task force. Björk is not only qualified, but also extremely motivated to come to Finland for personal reasons, of which Hautalehto has no clue.
Hautalehto 10: The Blast of the Past (2022)
Antti Hautalehto has returned to the Porvoo Police to continue his work as the head investigator of his former team. A new criminal investigation is launched when a dead man is found on a golf course in Kotojärvi. The most chilling detail is on the body’s upper arm. The tattoo leaves no doubt: this is a member of the Order of the Bolt. And revenge lives on.
When Hautalehto gets a surprise visitor from years ago, the past begins to coil around his neck like a snake, and he is not the only one in mortal danger. Back against the wall, Hautalehto must choose between following his own moral principles or obeying the law to a T.
In the tenth instalment of the series, Hautalehto returns to the quaint city of Porvoo, he’ll meet many a familiar face – some of them from behind the grave.
Hautalehto 11: The Man Who Vanished (2023)
Porvoo Police receive a report of a door in an old detached house that has been open for a long time. A patrol, sent to the house of economist Markku Keränen, finds nothing to suggest foul play, and when no one has reported Keränen missing either, Antti Hautalehto must assess whether the case merits further investigation.
However, the technical investigator, Simon Kannas, smells a rat and his radar catches not only a bad-tempered witness to the events at the house, but also a rare pistol shell casing. It comes from a gun notoriously used by Russian authorities, the bullet of which easily pierces a bulletproof vest of a policemen.
Hautalehto and his investigative team are forced to roll up their sleeves in this mysterious case that strongly suggests homicide. But where and who is the deceased?
Hautalehto 12: Rafael (Oct 2024)
A wave of street robberies targeting young people has spread from the capital area to Porvoo. One of the victims is a 16-year-old Sebastian who has recently moved to the city and has no friends, and is left to fend for himself until one day an unknown ally turns up in the middle of a violent situation. Sebastian befriends Rafael, a Finnish solider that has been in Ukrainan war, who jumps to Sebastian’s defense.
The police finally get to intervene when a body is found tied to a tree in the woods. The pressure is on for Hautalehto’s team to quickly track down the killer in this destructive cycle of revenge that threatens to gobble up one youngster after another.
TV/Film: Solar Films, Book 3 – Freezing Embrace
TV/Film: Solar Films, Book 4 – Freezing Embrace season 2
Finnish editions
German translation, Book 2
Synopses
‘We at Solar Films were initially drawn to Rönnbacka’s Hautalehto series because of the intriguing characters. In addition to police work, the books feature engaging interpersonal drama and humour. The stories progress coherently and at a suitable pace. The idyllic town of Porvoo adds its own unique character to the series, almost as if it were one of its characters. We always believed that viewers and critics would discover and enjoy the series.[…]’ –Rimbo Salomaa, producer, Solar Films
‘The Hautalehto series captivated me immediately – very credible writing. The plot is well thought out, with no excessive descriptions, just faith and trust that a good story will carry from start to finish. And it does. Realistic narration with a consistently good plot in each book. I always look forward to the next book in the series, it’s a joy to read a well-written crime novel.’ –Suvi Saarinen, Suomalainen Kirjakauppa bookstore chain