"Northern Finland, 1952, at the height of the Cold War with its neighbor the Soviet Union. A misunderstood, flawed, whip-smart Finnish woman police detective, while fighting against prejudice and political interference, investigates a murder on the Finno-Russian border. But that is but the beginning of her involvement. In fact the locals have been the victims of a crime so evil it is beyond anything any of them could have ever imagined."--Provided by publisher.

Northern Finland, 1952. Hella Mauzer, the first female Helsinki murder squad detective, has been dispatched to a remote Lapland village near the Soviet border by her chauvinistic boss to investigate an old man's disappearance. Trying to behave professionally-- like a man-- she manages to defy male authority by using her instinct for detecting half-truths and her compassion for the weak to try to solve a minor missing person case. But with the discovery of the body of a Soviet doctor, it mushrooms into something much more complex. -- adapted from Goodreads.com info