Sweden's Department of Sensitive Crimes is renowned for taking on the most obscure and irrelevant cases, so when a woman insists her bad-boy beau is being blackmailed, lead detective Ulf Varg is determined to help. In Alexander McCall Smith's second surreal foray into Scandinavian fiction, Ulf nonetheless finds himself distracted by his attractive co-worker, Anna, whose own fears about her husband's fidelity are causing a strain on her marriage. When Ulf is also tasked with tracking a group of dealers exporting wolves, it will require all of his team's dogged persistence to put these matters to bed.

"Cheerful or melancholy, irritated or resigned, Detective Varg gives the reader more dry wit, inspired whimsy and comic pleasure than any other Swedish investigator in the business."—Wall Street Journal