I've just picked up Johan Theorin's The Darkest Room, which I'm quite excited to read. I don't recall where I first heard of this author (though he has recently been recommended to me), but this particular title was brought to my attention when I discovered it had been shortlisted for the 2010 International Dagger Award (more about the prize here). Theorin is a Swedish author, and The Darkest Room is his second novel, which has won several book prizes in Sweden.
Aside from being generally fond of a well executed crime novel (which I am expecting this to be), this one has an appealing setting. An island off the northern coast of Sweden becomes the new home for a young family from Stockholm. In the mid-1800s two lighthouses were built there, and from the wreck of a ship timber it had been carrying which washed ashore was used to build an extravagant manor house for the caretaker.
"Joakim still found it difficult to get used to the size of the main house; with its white gables and red wooden walls, it rose up at the top of the sloping grassy plain. Two beautiful chimneys sat on top of the tiled roof like towers, black as soot. A warm yellow light glowed in the kitchen window and on the veranda; the rest of the house was pitch black."
"So many families who had lived there, toiling away at the walls, doorways, and floors over the years--master lighthouse keepers and lighthouse assistants and whatever they were called. They had left their mark on the manor house."
I think I am in for a gripping read. It's not only a crime novel, but seems to have elements of a ghost story as well, and it takes place on the coast looking out onto the Baltic Sea. Based on what little I've read, I've already requested his first novel, Echoes from the Dead to read next.