It’s high summer in Scandinavia. Hanne Wilhelmsen finds herself, much against her will, at her family’s newly purchased, stately summer cabin by Viksfjord in Vestfold. Summer guests come and go, and one high pressure after another sweeps over southern Norway. Everything is pure idyll. For everyone except Hanne.

Two years have passed without Hanne participating in any investigations, and the police chief himself has banned her from being involved in new ones. The idleness is getting on the nerves of both Hanne and her family. But then an elderly woman is found dead, naked in a bathtub, deep in Maridalen in Oslo. The deceased turns out to be an acquaintance of the Wilhelmsen’s cabin neighbor, the shy crime author Kristine Hoff. To escape a cabin full of parties and guests, Hanne quickly seeks refuge in Kristine’s cool, shady garden. A strange friendship develops, and Hanne Wilhelmsen is once again to prove that she surpasses most when it comes to digging up old secrets and solving new crimes.

Diamonds and Rust is a story about wounds that never heal, about envy, betrayal and revenge, and about a crime so well and thoroughly thought out that it may never be solved. Not unless Hanne Wilhelmsen gets a chance to try.