GHOST ISLAND by Max Seeck longlisted for the Petrona Award!

We are so happy to tell you, that GHOST ISLAND by Max Seeck, the fourth title in the NYT-bestselling Jessica Niemi series, has been longlisted for The Petrona Award! Twelve novels from the Nordic countries have made the list, and the shortlist will be announced September 18th!

The 2025 award panel consists of Jackie Farrant, creator of Racen Crime Reads, bookseller for a major UK book chain, Ewa Sherman, translator, writer and blogger at Nordic Lighthouse, and Sonja van der Westhuizen, a book critic and blogger at West Words Reviews, and the Award administrator is Karen Meek, owner of Euro Crime blog and website.

The Petrona award has been established to remember one of the first crime bloggers Maxine Clarke, who was passionate about crime fiction.

DOWNLOAD READING MATERIALS FOR GHOST ISLAND HERE

About Ghost Island

A month after solving the Zetterborg case, Jessica Niemi is ordered on paid leave after an altercation, and she decides to travel to a small island in the Åland archipelago to escape the attention and find some peace. Meanwhile, a group of old people arrive on the same island, and Jessica learns that they are the remaining members of the Doves, the people who had to flee from Finland to Sweden during World War II and ended up living in an orphanage on the very same island.

One evening, Jessica hears a local legend about a girl who also inhabited the orphanage once, but who was mentally ill. Every night at two o’clock, the girl put on her blue coat and went to stand on the pier, waiting for something that never showed up. One night she disappeared and was never found. That same night, one of the remaining Doves dies.

Jessica soon finds out that two other people have previously faced the same fate on the same island, and all three people seem to have something to do with the girl in the blue coat. A chain of events starts to escalate, and we don’t know whether we’re facing a killer or – just like the legend says – a ghost, the girl in the blue coat.

Jessica Niemi is once again facing a scary mystery where the stakes are considerable. Whilst battling her own demons, uncertain what is real and what is not, she needs to find out the truth.