Around Halloween, strange things are always happening in the town where Nelly and Valle live. This year, the two agents have received a mission from the Monster Academy to find out why.

This particular night, the Halloween swim meet is taking place, and the oddities are soon piling up! The water turns to slime, the trampoline is as soft as cooked spaghetti, and a huge shark suddenly appears in the pool. There is definitely something supernatural going on. Could Nelly and Valle’s classmate Bim have something to do with it?

Nelly Rapp and the School of Higher Magic is the twenty-fourth installment in Martin Widmark’s spooky series about monster agent Nelly Rapp.

One spring morning, teenage girl Shirin wakes up in a tent on the island of Vorsø. Her big brother is still asleep when she gets up to wash off down by the water. The beach is deserted, and it is far too quiet. Their father, Tami, wanted them to get up early so they could begin fishing at the crack of dawn, but the sun is already high in the sky. She goes to her father’s tent to awaken him, but finds him with his throat cut open, covered in his own blood.

Shirin flees the island to the only family she knows, car mechanic Nima Ansari. The Southeast Jylland’s police receive help from the homicide department in Copenhagen to solve the murder of Tami, who many years ago came to Denmark, escaping the Iranian regime. The case ends up on the desk of investigator Petter Bohm. Feeling stressed and forgetful, Petter asks Liv for help to solve the case and to find Shirin and her brother before the killer does. From Liv’s residence in the basement apartment at Vesterbro, the leads branch out to both the past and present and to the residents of the backyard, who gradually must realize that silence always has a price.

The White Nights is the second installment in the bestselling and critically acclaimed series about investigator and private detective Liv Jensen.

Actor Ella Rae Rappaport grew up in Stockholm, Sweden with a half-American, half-Swedish upbringing. She made her screen debut at the age of ten in SVT’s celebrated Christmas Calendar, Barna Hedenhös uppfinner Julen (2013), where she played one of the leads, Flisa Hedenhös. She also played the lead, Gladys, in the feature film Alone in Space (2018), as well as the recurring roles as Sam in the HBO comedy series Lust (2022), and Sandra in the UR-series Limboland (2019).

In 2023, Rappaport finished shooting the starring role in the much-anticipated feature film Egghead Republic, by acclaimed writer/director duo Pella Kågerman and Hugo Lilja (Aniara). Egghead Republic is to be released in Spring, 2024.

Rappaport began her acting studies at Södra Latins Gymnasium, where she for three years trained in different techniques such as Stanislavski and Epic Theater (Bertholt Brecht). She also directed and wrote manuscripts. Later, she studied Dramaturgy at Biskops Arnö Folkhögskola where she wrote scripts for film, theater, and radio.

The list of 2022’s most borrowed library titles is out, and Martin Widmark and Helena Willis top the list. Their series The JerryMaya Detective Agency regularly feature at No. 1 on the Swedish bestseller lists and has been translated into over 30 languages.

Yrsa Sigurdardóttir’s critically acclaimed novel The Prey has been named one of the best crime books of 2023 alongside Jørn Lier Horst & Thomas Enger’s Stigma, the internationally bestselling fourth Blix & Ramm novel.

Twenty years after the publication of Stalin’s Cows, Sofi Oksanen is back with an impactful essay, Same River Twice, depicting how Russia is repeating its old playbook in Ukraine, a playbook first executed by Catherine the Great in Crimea in 1783, and again on a larger and bloodier scale by the Soviet Union and Stalin.

Russia has never confronted its imperialist past. Instead, the Kremlin has focused on creating enemies, using them to lay the groundwork for the sexual violence it employs in wars and dehumanizing those who become victims of human rights abuses. Gender equality progress is in decline in Putin’s Russia. Russia silences women, uses rape as a weapon, and humiliates its victims in the media, threatening them with further sexual violence.

This essay on colonialism, oppression and genocide is also a story of war and of women. It addresses the necessity of talking about war, and about war crimes, arguing that no matter what happens, silence cannot ever win.