Maria Kallio Series has sold over 2 million copies worldwide and been translated into 30 languages. The 15th book will surely catch one’s ear!

Maria Kallio is getting ready for her daughter’s graduation when her cat brings her a human ear. She takes it to the forensic lab and doesn’t think any more of it.

Maria and her team are assigned to investigate a rape of a young woman when things start to heat up. The accused rapist is a young man with an immigrant background, which causes a lot of racism and heated discussions in the papers and media. Angry fathers are organizing a street patrol to keep their daughters safe, and when Rahim is released from the police station, his safety is not guaranteed. Maria and her team are working to solve a new case, but online trolls are targeting them and doing everything to distract them. But when Maria is almost killed by an earless driver, it makes her wonder if all the harassment is related to the case, or could it be something more personal?

Rights sold:

FINLAND: Tammi (orig.)
GERMANY: Rowohlt

TV & FILM RIGHTS: MTV3/C More

A man is abducted at Helsinki airport and left to drown in a remote lake. He survives and a journey for answers begins!

#crime #revenge #espace #secretsfromthepast

Aino is a ranger, located at a distant corner of the Finnish wilderness. One day she finds a man fighting for his final breath. The man, Tomas, has been abducted at the airport, drugged, and abandoned to die. Aino saves his life, and when Tomas recovers, together they hope to find out what happened and why. Tomas learns that he has gotten involved in a murderous plot by bloodthirsty motorbike gang.

Do they stand a chance against their new enemies? Can they find a way out of the nightmare that someone else has started? Or is it time to break the oaths, made so long ago…

Rights sold:

FINLAND: Tammi (orig)

ESTONIA: Pegasus
LITHUANIA: BALTO

In The Killer’s Girlfriend, Lehtolainen delights the readers with short stories featuring the loved protagonists of her Maria Kallio and The Bodyguard books, but expands also into mystery and ghost stories. How does a librarian become a killer’s girlfriend? Is love stronger than death, and can a child have three fathers?

The capturing stories take their characters in unexpected situations and don’t let the reader off the hook.

When a woman’s body turns up in a lake—a bullet to the back of her head—Violent Crime Unit commander Maria Kallio, freshly back from maternity leave, is fast to get on the case. The victim is ID’d as Annukka Hackman, wife of a prominent publisher and author of an upcoming unauthorized tell-all book on Sasha Smeds, Finland’s celebrated racing rally driver.

Almost as soon as the inquiry starts, it goes off the rails, as those connected to Annukka—and to Smeds—seem to have more secrets than they have alibis. Was the journalist about to reveal a bombshell that someone was desperate to keep quiet? Or will it take some reading between the lines? The clues may be few, but the list of suspects is long. As she struggles to balance her home life, run a department tainted by career-threatening allegations, and catch a killer, Maria is shocked to find just what someone was willing to do in the name of love…or revenge.

Book 14 in the bestselling Maria Kallio series. A female detective police procedural, The End of Innocence is also a study of young men’s fragile sexuality. Perfect for fans of Lynda La Plante’s DCI Jane Tennison series.

When a newly-released child molester is found dead in an abandoned playground, the case lands on Maria Kallio’s desk. As newly-appointed chief of the child & youth crime unit, Kallio finds herself with a highly sensitive homicide case on her hands, with suspects including the deceased’s victims and their relatives. A harrowing case for Maria, the mother of a teenage son herself, the novel examines whether we can survive abuse, and privacy in the age of the internet.

Rights sold:
FINLAND, Tammi
GERMANY, Rowohlt

When the 92-year-old textile industry magnate Lovisa Johnson offers Hilja a job as her bodyguard, she does not hesitate. The businesswoman lives in a mansion that’s rumored to be haunted, after all. Johnson is childless, but her grandnephews and -nieces – a doctor, an oil industry lobbyist, a security guard and a clairvoyant – are eager for their cut of the inheritance. A combination of a mansion mystery and a fast-paced thriller, the novel is an anticipated new entry in the series.

Rights sold:

Original publisher: FINLAND, Tammi
GERMANY, Rowohlt

The final installment of the trilogy can also be read as a standalone thriller. When uninvited guests show up at the wedding of a Finnish businessman and his Russian girlfriend for whom Hilja Ilveskero is working, an international mystery begins to unravel. Hidden truths are revealed, and soon Hilja comes face-to-face with an unthinkable tragedy from her childhood: the murder of her mother.

Rights sold:
Original publisher: FINLAND, Tammi
ARMENIA, Guitank
CZECH, Argo
FRANCE, Hachette (Book 1-2)
GERMANY, Rowohlt
HOLLAND, Unieboek (Book 1)
RUSSIA, Azbooka-Atticus
SPAIN, Destino
TAIWAN, Linking
TURKEY, Nemesis
WORLD ENGLISH, Amazon Crossing

Hilja Ilveskero is visiting her lover David Stahl in Italy, where he is hiding from a Belorussian mobster. After David suddenly disappears, Hilja is forced to return to Finland to work for her former client who owns a restaurant. When someone begins threatening the business, Hilja is drawn into a web of international crime.

The Lion of Justice was published in August 2011, and it immediately hit the top of Finland’s official bestseller list and the bestseller list of Adlibris, the biggest online bookshop in the Nordic countries!

Rights sold:
Original publisher: FINLAND, Tammi
ARMENIA, Guitank
CZECH, Argo
FRANCE, Hachette (Book 1-2)
GERMANY, Rowohlt
HOLLAND, Unieboek (Book 1)
RUSSIA, Azbooka-Atticus
SPAIN, Destino
TAIWAN, Linking
TURKEY, Nemesis
WORLD ENGLISH, Amazon Crossing

A thrilling trilogy with a complex female protagonist, New York-trained bodyguard Hilja Ilveskero.

In the first book, Hilja’s client conducting real estate business in Russia is killed, and she is suspected of murder. She sets out to prove her innocence – both to the authorities and to herself. Going underground, she soon realizes that someone is after her. Can she trust anyone, even the people closest to her – and what is the price of betraying, or saving, another person?

Rights sold:
Original publisher: FINLAND, Tammi
ARMENIA, Guitank
CZECH, Argo
FRANCE, Hachette (Book 1-2)
GERMANY, Rowohlt
HOLLAND, Unieboek (Book 1)
RUSSIA, Azbooka-Atticus
SPAIN, Destino
TAIWAN, Linking
TURKEY, Nemesis
WORLD ENGLISH, Amazon Crossing

The body of Jaakko Pulma, an antiques and diamond dealer, is found at the church of Tapiola near Helsinki. Whoever murdered him appears to also have stolen a set of priceless family diamonds. A former employee becomes the primary suspect, but the situation becomes more complicated when Pulma’s lost phone begins to send out messages. Maria Kallio and her colleagues soon receive tips of a money laundering operation.

A hunt for the missing diamonds leads the police into an international web of crime. Buried deep into Pulma’s history is evidence of blackmail and an accident that turns out to not have been one at all. Not even the police is safe in the final showdown. A hit song, A Stroke of Sadness, by a band called Starflower adds an unusual twist to the story.

Rights sold:
Original publisher: FINLAND, Tammi
GERMANY, Rowohlt

An intense drama set in the Finnish archipelago. Two bodies, a dead socialite, ghosts from the past, and a woman beaten to within an inch of her life. And Maria Kallio playing summer vacation widow with a handsome local cop.

Mari Kallio’s Special Crimes Unit is assigned to solve the mystery of two corpses wrapped in plastic found on the shore of tiny Brändö Island. The female victim is an impoverished former model and fiery defender of Swedish language minority rights, Saila Lind, who has enemies to spare. Nearby is a villa owned by a famous hockey star where Lind visited frequently.

Also sticking his nose into the case is local cop Jon Berg, whose appeal for Maria is increased by the rest of her family being on a sailing vacation abroad. As she investigates the identity of the other victim, alarming things float to the surface from Maria’s past. A serious assault in the family of the hockey player further complicates the situation.

Who will make it home to port alive?

Rights sold:
Original publisher: FINLAND, Tammi
GERMANY, Rowohlt

Maria Kallio, working on an EU project training Afghani police, travels to the opening ceremonies for the country’s new police academy. Disaster follows.

Upon returning home to Finland, Maria begins work as head of the newly-established Espoo Special Crimes Unit and is assigned to investigate the disappearance of three immigrant girls. The girls frequented the same girls club as Maria’s daughter Ida.

Then the body of a fourth Muslim girl is found in the snow, strangled with her own headscarf. Are the cases related? Is a serial killer on the move? Or did the girls’ families have something to do with the disappearances?

Leena Lehtolainen’s Where Have All the Young Girls Gone is an engrossing exploration of the collision between tradition and the new multicultural Europe. It is a journey into a world where daily life is defined by ancient beliefs and deeply ingrained, habitual perceptions. Who is in the right when there are two truths?

Rights sold:
Original publisher: FINLAND, Tammi
WORLD ENGLISH, AmazonCrossing
DENMARK, Bazar
GERMANY, Rowohlt
LATVIA, Jumava
NORWAY, Bazar
POLAND, Rebis
ROMANIA, Hardcover & Paperback
SWEDEN, Bazar
TAIWAN, Linking

In my dreams, everything I’ve experienced in my life comes back to me. The muzzle of a moose rifle extends towards my chest, and when it withdraws, I see an exploding mailbox, which launches into the air with my daughter Iida.

Mari Kallio has left behind the Espoo Police Department. However, her plans for establishing a law firm to serve the less fortunate founder when her intended partner and school friend Leena is permanently disabled in an automobile accident. Maria begins work with a domestic violence research project under the auspices of the Ministry of the Interior, safely behind a desk.

Through Leena, Maria becomes acquainted with a journalist, Jutta Särkikoski, who has exposed the illegal doping of two champion discus throwers. Särkikoski has been injured under mysterious circumstances: his car was forced off the road after he had been interviewing Toni Väärä, a runner who had recently made a surprise breakthrough in the 800-meter. Väärä, who was also in the car, is injured so badly that he will be out of competition for the following season. Särkikoski had been receiving death threats before the accident, and there doesn’t seem to be any end to them.

Letting go of the past isn’t easy for Maria, evidenced by the repetitive dreams that torment her. When the threats against Särkikoski are carried out, Maria is unexpectedly forced back to her old workplace and its familiar faces. Memories of her last, nearly catastrophic homicide investigation won’t leave her alone, but there isn’t any room for resting on the back stretch in a race with a murderer.

Before the tape is broken at the finish line, far too many people manage to put the police on the wrong track in this tale of scandal in the world of sports.

Rights sold:
Original publisher: FINLAND, Tammi
WORLD ENGLISH, AmazonCrossing
GERMANY, Rowohlt
LATVIA, Jumava
POLAND, Rebis

A badly cut-up, scantily-clad woman is brought to Jorvi Hospital in Espoo. Maria Kallio’s suspicions of a connection to the world of sex for money are confirmed the next day when a well-known prostitute is murdered during a live television broadcast.

Celebrity prostitute Lulu Nightingale offered sex services in her Indecent Nightingale Studio, the clients of which included some of the top names in Finnish society. Influential television host Ilari Länsimies and National Bureau of Investigation Inspector (NBI) Lasse Nordström have both met with the murdered prostitute recently under mysterious circumstances.

Maria Kallio and her subordinates’ investigation is hampered by a turf war with an NBI underworld operation. On top of it all, more homicides keep rolling in. Maria Kallio’s life also isn’t made any easier by the fact that her husband, Antti, is getting along so well at his new job in Vaasa, 400 km to the north.

Leena Lehtolainen’s Indecent Nightingale is an irresistibly gripping thriller about current, politically-sensitive issues. It is also a dramatic and daring story about the night side of humanity and the world of sex for hire, where even Maria Kallio gets into the fix of her life.

Rights sold:
Original publisher: FINLAND, Tammi
WORLD ENGLISH, AmazonCrossing
GERMANY, Rowohlt
LATVIA, Jumava
SWEDEN, Albert Bonniers

Maria Kallio has returned to work at the Espoo Police Department crime division from her second maternity leave. A lot has changed: Maria now has a stunningly beautiful female subordinate, Maria and her husband, Antti, have been forced to move into a high-rise apartment building, which grates on their relationship, and things aren’t helped one bit by the fact that Maria is thrown into the center of a murder investigation. The journalist Annukka Hackman is found shot dead in Kirkkonummi, on the shore of Humaljärvi Lake with a wet suit on.

Little by little, Maria discovers that there were more than a few people with a motive to murder Annukka. Annukka was an ambitious, ruthless journalist who was writing a tell-all book about top Finnish rally driver Sasha Smeds, and her methods of acquiring information wouldn’t exactly stand up to the light of day. Events also seem to be connected in some way to the Soviet occupation of the Porkkala Peninsula. In addition, Maria’s colleague “Carrion” Kervinen has gotten mixed up in the case and someone in the police department is leaking classified information to the press . . .

Rights sold:
Original publisher: FINLAND, Tammi
WORLD ENGLISH, AmazonCrossing
GERMANY, Rowohlt
LATVIA, Jumava

A battered man lies beside a bicycle path. Someone has beaten furniture designer and Green Party city councilor Petri Ilveskivi into an inch of his life. Ilveskivi, a familiar face in the media, known for his sharp tongue, has managed to run afoul of all sorts of people in his private and political lives. Is the assault a result of a personal grudge, or was this a random act of violence? Did the skinheads just get tired of Petri’s open homosexuality?

The Ilveskivi case turns out to be unusually complicated. Drugs, xenophobia, and municipal power politics are all thrown into the cauldron.

In her own life, Maria Kallio is forced to grapple with the question of another addition to her family. Even though everything seems to be going well at home, Maria is still forced to weigh the significance of police work to herself and her family. She also discovers that it isn’t only her own safety that is at risk . . .

Rights sold:
Original publisher: FINLAND, Tammi
WORLD ENGLISH, AmazonCrossing
GERMANY, Rowohlt
LATVIA, Jumava
SWEDEN, Albert Bonniers

Maria Kallio is returning from maternity leave to take up her post as the head of violent crime at the Espoo Police Department. She spends her last free weekend with her husband, Antti, and her baby, Ida, on the fortress island of Rödskär.

A year earlier, one of Maria’s ex-boyfriends, Harri Immonen, a bird watcher, died in a fall on the steep cliffs of the island. The island’s owner, Anne Merivaara, asks Maria to reopen the case. Was it really an accident or is this a case of murder?

On the anniversary of Harri’s death, Juha Merivaara loses his life on the same rocks. It can’t be a coincidence. Who would want to get rid of the CEO of a company that makes ecological paint products? His wife, Anne, his animal rights activist son, or his daughter, who is dating an opera singer her father’s age? Or is the culprit world-circumnavigating sailor Mikke Sjöberg, who Maria finds altogether too interesting?

After losing the race for chief inspector to Maria, Pertti Ström has begun acting strangely. At the same time, the violent crimes unit is being kept busy by animal rights activist strikes all over Espoo. As the fields of Kauklahti burn, Maria is forced to decide who is really on the side of nature and justice.

Rights sold:
Original publisher: FINLAND, Tammi
CHINA, Sichuan Literature and Art Publishing House
WORLD ENGLISH, AmazonCrossing
GERMANY, Rowohlt
JAPAN, Tokyo Sogensha
LATVIA, Jumava
POLAND, Terytoria
SWEDEN, Albert Bonniers

Noora Nieminen was destined to become a world-champion pairs skater. When the 16-year-old skating sensation is found slain with her own skates, her trainers and parents’ dreams are shattered. Who is the culprit? Karaoke king Vesku Teräsvuori? The stalker who has been going around Espoo molesting young girls? Or is the murderer someone close to Noora after all?

Sergeant Maria Kallio is in her seventh month of pregnancy, but that isn’t going to stop her from putting everything she has into solving the murder. She is also driven by the competition between herself and her adversary, Pertti Ström, for the post of chief crime inspector. But the death spiral is already gaining momentum.

Rights sold:
Original publisher: FINLAND, Tammi
WORLD ENGLISH, AmazonCrossing
BRAZIL, Editora Nemo
FRANCE, Gaia
GERMANY, Rowohlt
JAPAN, Tokyo Sogensha
LATVIA, Jumava
NORWAY, Centrum Norsk Forlag
POLAND, Terytoria
SWEDEN, Albert Bonniers
TURKEY, Bizim Kitaplar

The director of a women’s therapy center in idyllic Nuuksio National Park in the south of Finland disappears. Was Elina Rosberg murdered? At the top of the list of suspects are the participants of the current therapy group, which has no shortage of problem cases, ranging from the mother of a large family belonging to the Laestadian religious sect to a sex worker from one of the grittier parts of Helsinki. There is also room enough on the list for the poet Joona Kirstilä, Rosberg’s male friend, who clearly has something to hide.

Maria Kallio has transferred to the Espoo Police Department and gotten married. She throws herself at the case, despite suffering from a strange case of fatigue and nausea. The pressure on Maria is increased by the news that Markku “Madman” Halttunen has escaped from prison and intends to take revenge on Maria for putting him there. Will her fate be the same as Rosberg’s—ending up as a snow woman somewhere deep in the forest?

Rights sold:
Original publisher: FINLAND, Tammi
WORLD ENGLISH, AmazonCrossing
BRAZIL, Editora Nemo
FRANCE, Gaia
GERMANY, Rowohlt
JAPAN, Tokyo Sogensha
LATVIA, Jumava
POLAND, Fundacja im. Adama Wittmanna
SWEDEN, Albert Bonniers

Arpikylä is Maria Kallio’s childhood hometown, a quiet mining city in North Karelia. Maria has returned to enjoy some relaxed country living as the temporary summer replacement for the local sheriff. But her peace is disturbed, first by her old flame, Johnny, and then by the body that is found at the base of the mine tower. Was the dead woman, local artist Meritta Flöjt, pushed from the tower?

The crime plays havoc with both the gold medal pursuits of javelin-thrower Kaisa Miettinen and the business activities of entrepreneur Seppo Kivinen. The case takes Maria from the pinnacle of the tower into the bowels of the mine, from a strip club into the secret lives of her schoolmates. And soon the same copper hearts are dangling from Maria’s ears as from the murdered woman’s . . .

Rights sold:
Original publisher: FINLAND, Tammi
WORLD ENGLISH, AmazonCrossing
FRANCE, Gaia
GERMANY, Rowohlt
LATVIA, Zvaigzne
RUSSIA, Ast

Maria Kallio has left the Helsinki crime squad to work for a law office in Espoo, headquarters of the cell phone giant Nokia. Police work isn’t her job now, but when a new acquaintance, Armi Mäenpää, is found strangled in her home and the case is labeled a sex crime, Maria can’t keep her hands off. The unofficial inquiries of our willful redhead push her old enemy, Inspector Pertti Ström, to the verge of apoplexy. Maria will stop at nothing to push behind the curtains of Espoo high society—and almost loses everything in the process.

Rights sold:
Original publisher: FINLAND, Tammi
WORLD ARABIC, Al Arabi
WORLD ENGLISH, AmazonCrossing
FRANCE, Gaia
GERMANY, Rowohlt
GREECE, Livani
HUNGARY, Animus
ISRAEL, Penn
JAPAN, Tokyo Sogensha
LATVIA, Zvaigzne
POLAND, Rebis
RUSSIA, Ast