The Stager

Henning Mankell meets Stephen King! Arttu Tuominen’s unique human touch and excellence in depicting characters combined with shocking horror elements brings originality to Nordic Noir.

✓ Sixth novel in the internationally successful River Delta series - sold to 7 territories!

✓ Each novel can be read as a standalone.

✓ Arttu Tuominen is a Palle Rosenkrantz Prize-winning and a Spiegel Bestselling author! He was shortlisted for the Glass Key Awards 2021, a nominee Book Beat Finland’s Best Finnish Crime Author 2021-2023 and won the ‘Clue of the Year' Crime Novel of the Year Award 2020.

A serial killer wants to be a director. You too can end up on stage. In Arttu Tuominen's chilling detective story, the curtain is a guillotine.

A family – father, mother and primary school-age daughter – is watching TV together on a remote forest farm. The dog is lounging peacefully on the carpet at the family's feet. What could be more idyllic? Except that they have all been killed and embalmed.

Soon another family is found, equally immortalized. Henrik Oksman, Jari Paloviita and Linda Toivonen of the Pori criminal police unit, under the leadership of Susanna Manner, quickly realize there’s a serial killer on the move who finds the presentation of the victims more important than the murders themselves.

The police will find out they too have roles written for them in this cruel play. Will everyone make it to the end of the show?

THE STAGER is the sixth and final book in the acclaimed ‘River Delta’ series, which has seen commercial success and garnered praise from readers and critics alike, both at home and abroad. Set in the city of Pori by the Gulf of Bothnia, a Finnish police unit has to solve crimes that force them to consider their own acts and values. In turn, each of the officers of the unit is centered in the narration, having to face their own ghosts from the past. Each novel can be read as a standalone.

Also available in River Delta Series:

River Delta #1: The Oath
A touching and engaging crime novel about secrets and guilt. Commissioner Jari Paloviita works on a murder case where the prime suspect is an old friend he feels indebted to.

River Delta #2: Jeopardy
The grenade attack on the restaurant claims casualties – and at the same time threatens to expose Chief Commissioner Herik Oksman’s life-long secret.

River Delta #3: Silenced
Pori police detectives Jari Paloviita, Linda Toivonen and Henrik Oksman are faced with an exceptionally cruel series of crimes against elderly citizens. They are dealing with international crime, and one of the taboos of the Finnish war story is connected to the investigation.

River Delta #4: Shamed
An investigation into a girl’s murder takes the police into the world of predators hiding on the Internet and becomes personal for Constable Linda Toivonen, whose daughter knew the victim.

River Delta #5: The Liberator                                                                                                        The charred body of a man is discovered on a sports field in Pori. Suspicions are directed at a group of young adults known to have harassed rough sleepers in the past. When a second arson attack is caught on CCTV, the Pori police are forced to take the attacks seriously as rumours on the street talk of a ‘liberator’ offering the wretched eternal life and freedom from pain.

With The Liberator, Tuominen has written his best detective novel so far. This is a great achievement, as the level has been excellent since the beginning of the Delta series
– Taika Dahlbom in Helsingin Sanomat newspaper