Cyclone Warning

ORIGINAL TITLE: Cyklonvarning

NUMBER OF PAGES: 368

ORIGINAL PUBLISHER: Forum

GENRE: Crime

Cyclone Warning is the second installment in the Darwin-series, following up Don’t Mention the Dead, shortlisted for Best Swedish Crime Novel in 2020.
It’s Christmas time in Darwin, Australia, and the holidays bring a violent cyclone. Chief Bluey is tormented by memories from the disaster in 1974, when his younger brother was killed in cyclone Tracy. His long history of sobriety is truly put to the test. Fellow police Jess, who is Indigenous, is battling the white norms and her own sense of pride in being a police. Swedish art-student Greta is still residing in Darwin, where she has found love in Bluey’s daughter Cat.
Crime is escalating throughout Darwin, and not before long it’s clear that the reason is a new flow of methamphetamine in the community. The drug is a grim reaper and Bluey and Jess enter the investigation when a young man is found shot to death. Soon they realize that a majority of the victims are Indigenous, and as the cyclone is quickly approaching a different, and far more gruesome, story unravels.
Christina Wahldén skillfully writes the atmosphere in the particular Northern Territory, and doesn’t shy away from topics of racism and vulnerability. Cyclone warning is highly suspenseful, where both man and nature show their most terrifying faces.

Reviews

OPEN

"Wahldén skillfully and respectfully describes the exotic environments and the contrasting misery. The novel deals with the devastating effects of drugs, with segregation and racism, and the strong loyalty within the police force - all while the claustrophobic feeling created by the cyclone drives everything to its peak".

Borås Tidning

”Expectations are high once I get to revisit Bluey and Jess and Darwin, Australia. Don’t Mention the Dead, published in January 2020, was an absolutely brilliant opening […] This is a sequel that won’t disappoint.”

Göteborgs Posten

”Christina Wahldén insightfully tells of prejudice against the Indigenous and about a legal system that constantly favours the white. In most crime novels, junkies are nothing more than junkies: here they have devastated mothers desperately trying to save their children”

Dagens Nyheter

"Wahldén excels at describing discrimination against the Indigenous, as well as incipient infatuations and nature’s power over man" (4 out of 5)

Tara

"Despite the devastating cyclone and the misery brought on by drugs, this is a warm and loving novel. I like Bluey and Jess and I look forward to part three in the series".

Norran

”Oh yes, Christina Wahldén has done it again! Cyclone Warning is an intense, important and shattering read, so much more than just a crime novel. It is a journey through space and time, that allows us to get a glimpse of the wrongs done to the Indigenous – but also of a justice system so vastly different from our own.”

Agneta Norrgård

”As in the last book in the Darwin-series, the author is writing with great competence and warmth about the Indigenous customs, and her use of the cyclone sweeping in to trigger the suspense is smart. CYCLONE WARNING is equally a thrilling crime novel and a devoted cultural depiction.”

BTJ

Endorsements