What the House Stood On

About this book

Kiruna, Swedish Lapland, autumn 2025. The iron mine is swallowing the town, and the town is moving east one building at a time. Anneli Pekkari, a building antiquarian who prefers houses to people, has one last house to document before it is lifted onto steel beams and driven away: her own family's. On the morning it leaves, she climbs into the exposed root cellar and finds a boot heel, a wallet and a human jaw. For fifty-five years Kiruna has called Hannes Rova a thief who fled to Norway with his workmates' strike money. Now the police confirm he never left, and then close the file: the crime is too old for any court. His sister Gunvor wants the truth. Anneli's father has gone very quiet. And the house Anneli knows best has started to answer questions she never meant to ask.