Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2018
Originally published as Efter monsunen in Sweden in 2016 by Partners in Stories
Copyright © Robert Karjel 2018
Translation copyright © Nancy Pick and Robert Karjel 2018
Cover design by Dominic Forbes © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2018
Cover photograph © David et Myrtille/ Arcangel.com
Robert Karjel asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780007586080
Ebook Edition © July 2018 ISBN: 9780007586073
Version: 2018-05-31
For Josefin and Elvira
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Keep Reading …
About the Publisher
Mortal fear. Not anger, not surprise. Fear. He jerked so violently that he knocked the machine gun out of the sailboat’s cockpit, before he could get ahold of it again.
The sea was glassy, without so much as a ripple. The sails on the MaryAnn II hung limp. The boat sat motionless, the nearest land five thousand meters below. A nameless position in the middle of the Indian Ocean.
He picked up the gun and stood in a crouch, holding it to his chest. The safety still engaged. He hesitated. A feeble, half-conscious hope: what if they saw that he was armed, the way he saw that they were? But it was useless. They kept closing in.
The fast motorboats—skiffs—had come out of nowhere. They were speeding toward him at the stern. Someone shouted from there, he couldn’t make out the words. He turned toward the hatch, where his family was still unaware, below deck, spending the day out of the heat. He was just about to warn them, when he heard even louder shouts from the skiffs, and his protective instincts took over. They had to be kept down there. Not a chance in hell