The Ninth Grave cover art

The Ninth Grave

A Fabian Risk Thriller - Prequel

 Preview
Try Premium Plus free
Thousands of incredible audiobooks and podcasts to take wherever you go.
Immerse yourself in a world of storytelling with the Plus Catalogue - unlimited listening to thousands of select audiobooks, podcasts and Audible Originals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

The Ninth Grave

By: Stefan Ahnhem
Narrated by: Mike Rogers
Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.

Buy Now for £19.99

Buy Now for £19.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

A Sunday Times Crime Club Star Pick. From the million-copy author of the Scandinavian sensation Victim Without a Face.

On the coldest day of the year, Sweden's Minister for Justice steps into a blizzard – and disappears. Who has taken him? That same night, across the Baltic Sea, a Danish celebrity is at her home, locked in and cut off from the snow. Then she hears footsteps in her living room. Who is in her house? The police are soon hunting two different murderers. One is a surgeon who carefully dissects his victims. The other is a brutal predator who targets random women. Police in Stockholm and Copenhagen are closing in on their suspects. But as winter darkens and more people die, their investigations begin to unravel.

©2015 Stefan Ahnhem (P)2019 W. F. Howes Ltd Suspense Thriller & Suspense Fiction Scandinavia Thriller Mystery Sweden

Listeners also enjoyed...

 The Bucket List cover art
Fatal Isles cover art
Dark Pines cover art
The Last Pilgrim cover art
The Turin Shroud Secret cover art
Betrayal cover art
The Creak on the Stairs cover art
The Longest Silence cover art
Where Ravens Roost cover art
Everything Is Mine cover art
Hunting Game cover art
Forget Me Not cover art
The Lover cover art
Angel Maker cover art
The Guilty One cover art
The Fake Wife cover art

Critic reviews

"More gripping than Jo Nesbo, blacker than Stieg Larsson." (Tony Parsons)

"Atmospheric and complicated...with great cop characters and some imaginatively grisly perps." (Sunday Times)

"A gripping page-turner of the highest order." (C. J. Box.)
All stars
Most relevant  
I knew this would be a long one so it had to be a very complex case with very many complex characters. And I was t wrong. I still almost gave up, not because the gruesome crimes and dark undertones, but the number of characters confused the hell out of me. I had to make a list of characters to use as cheat list with the changes between countries and murder scenes and characters at play. As quickly as the scenery evolved as quickly did the suspects change or develop and I was never sure when it was just a twist or a new revelation. All was woven together by the backstory which more and more got a foot in the actual and current murders and got the tension and suspense heated up to fever pitch. Parallel to the murders and investigations all characters had their own struggles and this became a decisive factor in the stories without taking over. All in all not a negative experience, on the contrary. The visual aspects of the crimes, the chase for the perpetrators and the personal and social consequences of their actions made this a great audio experience.
Only small dent was the length, it wasn’t too long and not a slow burner it just made the suspense immense and you better take a week end off. And of course now you need to trade the follow up books as no way can you let go of the characters now that you got invested into their investigations and the crimes. There is so much more to come.
It’s a pity though that not all the books are on audio. I got used now to Swedish and Danish characters with regional UK accents. Not a bad idea it turns out as it’s very tricky to use multiple regional foreign accents and make sure they differ as much as danish and Swedish so it works for me. Jonathan Keeble is a great narrator and I have heard him reading audiobooks with Nordic accents and it’s clear from his pronunciation of places and addresses and names that he’s quite good at it but it’s impossible for English speakers to get various different regional Nordic accents right. And now I have a voice in my head for all main actors so I’d love to get them all in form of audiobooks. There was a recent book published and another one to follow on kindle so I’m hopeful.

Nordic Noir at its best

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
It’s a good story but far too many characters, at points of it I had no clue what was going on. Dozens of police , dozens of victims, stacks of perpetrators. The narrator, who’s voice I actually liked for some unknown reason chose to use a Scottish accent, a Belfast accent, a Geordie accent and a London accent even though the book was set in Denmark and Sweden plus a bit of Israel. It wasn’t until the last 1/3 of the book that I figured out who was who. But I kept going to the end as I’d got used to the style. Defo worth a listen even with the downsides

Good and not so good

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Hard to classify this one. I love Nordic Noir but the bizarre use of regional English/Scottish/Irish/Georgia etc accents meant it completely lost its sense of place for me. It was also far too long. Although the premise of the book was interesting I was shocked to find after about 9 hours listening that I had another 6 to go! I felt more and more twists were being thrown in to drag it out. Disappointing then on both narration and story as some of the characters were very interesting. Not sure I could cope with another one if they are all like this.

A strange book

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Great listen but some of the characters have similar sounding names and it was easy to confuse the Danish & Swedish narratives. Parts of the storyline were frustrating (why not call for back up - over & over) but for free entertainment, it's hard to complain!

Gripping story

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Despite the title of this review, I'm going to confess to listening to this out of turn (after the first 2) but I'm very glad I did as it made more sense of the complicated backstory. I'm now completely hooked and looking forward to what comes next. I've seen reviews questioning why the narrator chooses Irish accents for the Danes, but once you tune in to the idea it really helps you understand which police force is at work and where the action is taking place. I've heard the same technique used elsewhere and it didn't bother me at all, in fact I like it! I would strongly recommend this series! Well done to both writer and narrator. Keep it up!!

Really good start to the series

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The narrator's strange pronunciation of certain words kept distracting me from the story. Otherwise a good story

Good story

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I am an avid book reader and it is not very often that I want a book to end... I found this book disjointed, full of holes in the plot and totally rubbish... however, i had to finish it out of sheer desperation. I have not read any of Stefan Ahnhem's books before and I was guided by a review... I will not be reading any more of his work.

Not for me

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Sorry had to stop listening because of the silly accents. The books after this are okay

Voices

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
it just goes on and on. Complicated storyline with horrendous narration.
Thankfully a freebie

a Marathon it just goes on

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Like other reviews, I had to stop listening to this book. It's supposed to be set in Scandinavia, and while I don't expect Scandi accents, it's quite ridiculous to use completely different accents from other countries to depict certain characters who are supposed to be Danish and Swedish! ! It spoilt the whole story, which I'm sure would have been good otherwise. I don't think the performance in general was very good. Totally the wrong voice to be narrating this kind of novel. Just didn't suit.

What is with the accents?!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.