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The Mountain King and The Glass Man
by Anders de la Motte

Well narrated by Cassandra Campbell

The Mountain King: Atria Books, 2024; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Simon & Schuster Audio, 2024; Libro.fm⩘ .

Full review:
The Mountain King by Anders de la Motte⩘ 

Character list

• Detective Leonore "Leo" Asker, Malmö's Major Crime Division
• Department of Lost Souls, the unit for odd, cold cases banished to the basement of the police station, formally known as the Resources Unit
• Malik "MM" Mansur, architectural student
• Smilla Holst, daughter in one of the wealthiest families in Malmö, Sweden
• Martin Hill, Asker's old friend and urban explorer (UE), Professor, taught Malik, has an artificial heart valve because of which he has to take blood thinners so has to avoid any cuts or risks of internal bleeding
• Vesna Rodic, department chief
• Johan "Eskil" Eskilsson, detective
• Thomas Holst, Smilla's father, CEO of Arkadia Holdings
• Erik Holst, Smilla's grandfather, founder, principal owner, and chairman of the board of Arkadia
• Isabel Lissander, Leonore's mother, principle lawyer in Lissander and Partners law firm
• Jonas Hellman, Leonore's former boss, now with the National Operations Department, returned from Stockholm to assist in the case
• Per "Prepper Per" Asker, Leonore's father (Martin Hill gave him the nickname)
• Hana, Malik's mother, a dentist, from Iraq
• Malik's father retired early due to illness
• Ibbe Farakhad, a known Malmö criminal that Malik has been known to have some kind of connection to
• Resources Unit, the cold cases unit that Leonore is reassigned to, aka, the Department of Orphaned Cases and Lost Souls
• Virgilsson, Resources Unit
• Bengt Sandgren, former manager of the Resources Unit who has had a heart attack
• Gunilla "Rosen" Rosén, handles administrative duties in the Resources Unit
• Enok Zafer, IT specialist in the Resources Unit
• Kent "Attila" Atterbom, member of the Resources Unit with a somewhat violent past, has a red "do not disturb" light on his door, handles IT support
• Madame Rind, medium, and her blind pug dog, Garm
• Sophie, Martin Hill's urban exploration companion
• Tor Nilsson, graffiti artist, Sophie's little brother, missing for about a year
• Mya, Malik's friend
• Kjell Lilja, president of the model railway club in Hässelhom
• Marie, girl that the Mountain King meets at the model railroad place his step father is helping to create, daugher of the commander of the regiment
• Ulf Krook, previous president of the model railroad club, replaced by Lilja, not happy about it
• Camille, Leo's little sister, also works at the law firm
• Fredric Gylling, Camille's husband, formerly Leo's boyfriend
• Junot Lassander, Isabel's husband
• Jakob Tell, deputy chief of police in Hässelhom
• Finn Olofsson, Ulf's stepson
• Julia Collin, girl from Ängelholm who disappeared almost four years ago, Bengt's goddaughter, red backpack
• Ulrika Collin, Julia's mother
• Sebastian, Julia's big brother
• Robert "Robban", Ulrika's second husband
• Dido, Julia's dog
• Brother Wendel, forensics tech
• Liam Kuznicki, hitchhiker, twenty-four-year-old from Stockholm who has been missing eight years
• The buglars, kidnap victims, two young men who escaped from a young offender institution in Blekinge fourteen years ago, linked to a beaten-up Volvo

Full review: The Mountain King by Anders de la Motte⩘ 

The Mountain King and The Glass Man
by Anders de la Motte

Well narrated by Cassandra Campbell

The Glass Man: Atria/Emily Bestler Books, 2025; Bookshop.org⩘ ; audiobook: Simon & Schuster Audio, 2025; Libro.fm⩘ .

Full review:
The Glass Man by Anders de la Motte⩘ 

Character list

• Elis Brorson, urban explorer in a boat on their way to Bernhard Observatory on an island called Boulder Isle
• Nick Holmstedt, Elis' friend and his urbex companion
• Detective Leonore "Leo" Asker, formerly of the Malmö's Major Crime Division where she was head of section before being pushed out, now head of the Resources Unit (the Department of Lost Souls), the unit for odd, cold cases banished to the basement of the police station
• Per "Prepper Per" Asker, Leonore's father (Martin Hill gave him the nickname), who Leo hasn't seen for 15 years, ever since she thwarted his attempt to blow the two of them up
• Associate Professor Martin Hill, Asker's old friend and urban explorer (UE, the study of abandoned buildings and sites), has an artificial heart valve because of which he has to take blood thinners so has to avoid any cuts or risks of internal bleeding, lecturer at Lund University, where he teaches a course entitled 'the Architecture of Decay', author of a best-selling book that is something of a bible for those with an interest in UE; sometimes called "Darky Marty" when he was a kid by other kids
• AlphaCent Industries, company with futuristic office building where Martin is asked to come for a meeting, dynamic players in the medical technology sector: surgical instruments, robot-assisted surgery systems, one of the pioneers of DNA profiling technologies, developers of implanted technologies like pacemakers, implants, and replacement heart valves
• Samuel, chief security officer at AphaCent
• Gunnar Irving, founder of AlphaCent Industries, sometimes referred to as "Space Case irving"
• Nova Irving, current CEO of AlphaCent, Gunnar's daughter
• Maud Irving, Nova's sister and former CEO of AphaCent
• Erik Holst, founder, principal owner, and chairman of the board of Arkadia, grandfather of Smilla Holst who was kidnapped in The Mountain King
• Bernhard Irving, Nova's grandfather, founder of a food industry company called All Preserves that floundered by the end of the 50s and was taken over by Gunnar who relaunched it as AlphaCent
• Astroholm Manor, the estate of Irving family on the shore of Miresjön Lake.
• UFO encounter, Gunnar claimed that the ideas for his inventions stemmed from a UFO encounter that he had as a child, at Bernhard's observatory out on Boulder Isle. The alien was supposedly from the Alpha Centauri star system, which is also why, with his father's blessing, Gunnar renamed the company AlphaCent; the tale has given rise to a whole slew of conspiracy theories about the family estate, Astroholm Manor; one such theory is that Bernhard is interred in an underground burial chamber on the estate, while another claims there's a secret network of mining tunnels from the manor house all the way under Miresjön Lake and out to Boulder Isle
• Virgilsson, Resources Unit
• Gunilla "Rosen" Rosén, handles administrative duties in the Resources Unit
• Enok Zafer, IT specialist in the Resources Unit
• Kent "Attila" Atterbom, member of the Resources Unit with a somewhat violent past, has a red "do not disturb" light on his door, handles IT support
• Jonas Hellman, Leonore's former boss, now head of Serious Crimes; Leo and Jonas once had an affair that ended badly, so there are bad feelings between them
• Viggo, Gunnar's eldest son, drove his car off the road and into Miresjö Lake, killing his future brother-in-law
• The Glass Man, called Prince Pollux by his father; his twin, Castor, was born malformed, deaf, and blind, and didn't survive birth
• Sven, forensic medicine division (morgue), a UE friend of Martin Hill
• Uncle Tord Korpi, Leo identifies the dead man found in a debris heap near Prepper Per's property, where he had lain for 16 years after being shot in the back of his head
• Viktor, Leo's occasional lover
• Villa Arcturus, the house where Martin stays at Astroholm
• Jon Danielsson and Erik Sundin, two petty criminals who Leo identifies as suspects in Tord Korpi's murder

Full review: The Glass Man by Anders de la Motte⩘