The Exiled

By Kati Hiekkapelto

When Finnish police investigator Anna Fekete’s bag is stolen on holiday in the Balkan village of her birth, she is pulled into a murder investigation that becomes increasingly dangerous … and personal. The electrifying third book in the international, bestselling Anna Fekete series.

***Shortlisted for the Petrona Award for Best Scandinavian Crime Novel of the Year***

‘Tough and powerful crime fiction’ Publishers Weekly

'A gut-punch of a book’ Metro

'Dark-souled but clear-eyed, Kati Hiekkapelto’s edgy, powerful novels grip your throat and squeeze your heart. Addictive’ A J Finn, author of The Woman in the Window

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Anna Fekete returns to the Balkan village of her birth for a relaxing summer holiday. But when her bag is stolen and the thief is found dead on the banks of the river, Anna is pulled into a murder case. Her investigation leads straight to her own family and to closely guarded secrets concealing a horrendous travesty of justice that threatens them all.

As layer after layer of corruption, deceit and guilt are revealed, Anna is caught up in the refugee crisis spreading across Europe. How long before everything explodes?

Chilling, tense and relevant, The Exiled is an electrifying, unputdownable thriller from one of Finland’s most celebrated crime writers.

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'Finnish Kati Hiekkapelto deserves her growing reputation as her individual writing identity is subtly unlike that of her colleagues' Barry Forshaw, Financial Times

'The Exiled represents the next level in creative development of both the author and her heroine. There is the subtle confident maturity: the writer who is not afraid to challenge the current political and social situation, and to rage about it in the most elegant literary manner, and the character who learns more about her roots and her personality, and ways to deal with the feeling of displacement’ Crime Review

‘Compelling, assured and gutsy … a gripping and stimulating read’ LoveReading

‘There is something fresh and slightly subversive about Hiekkapelto’s writing … that makes the novel stand out from the pack’ Doug Johnstone, Big Issue

'An edgy and insightful chiller with a raw and brooding narrative. Skilfully plotted and beautifully written, Hiekkapelto has given us an excellent and suspenseful crime novel’ Craig Robertson

'A beautifully written and many-layered mystery novel that illuminates the dangers of prejudice, while still providing a major thrill ride' Mystery Scene Magazine

‘A taut and provocative thriller with a raging social conscience’ Eva Dolan

‘A writer willing to take risks with her work’ Sarah Ward

‘The taut and elegance of the writing brilliantly contrasts with the grit of the subject matter’ Anya Lipska

• Language: English
• Publisher: ORENDA BOOKS
• Release date: Aug 19, 2016
• ISBN: 9781910633526

Kati Hiekkapelto

Kati Hiekkapelto was born in 1970 in Oulu, Finland. She wrote her first stories at the age of two and recorded them on cassette tapes. Kati has studied Fine Arts in Liminka Art School and Special Education at the University of Jyväskylä. The subject of her final thesis/dissertation was racist bullying in Finnish schools. She went on to work as a special-needs teacher for immigrant children. Today Kati is an international crime writer, punk singer and performance artist. Her books, The Hummingbird and The Defenceless have been translated into ten languages. The Hummingbird was shortlisted for the Petrona Award in the UK in 2015 and The Defenceless won the prize for the best Finnish Crime Novel of the Year 2014, and has been shortlisted for the prestigious Glass Key. She lives and writes in her 200-year-old farmhouse in Hailuoto, an island in the Gulf of Bothnia, North Finland. In her free time she rehearses with her band, runs, hunts, picks berries and mushrooms, and gardens. During long, dark winter months she chops wood to heat her house, shovels snow and skis. Writing seems fairly easy, after all that. Follow her on Twitter @HiekkapeltoKati or visit www.katihiekkapelto.com

Reviews for The Exiled

[terran_9 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is the third book in the Anna Fekete series, but I read and enjoyed it as a stand-alone. Anna emigrated as a child from the former Yugoslavia to Finland where she is a policewoman. On her summer vacation back in Serbia, she ends up investigating her own purse-snatching and the murder of her policeman father 25 years previously. I was interested in the coverage of the deep rooted prejudice towards Romani (gypsies) and the refugees who live around the town of Kanizsa. There was information about the local culture and customs in Serbia, and references to the barriers between Hungarian and Serbian speaking people in the country. I'll be tempted to read future books in the series to keep in touch with Anna after she return to Finland.

[smik_3 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Anna Fekete's father was a policeman and after his murder her mother took their family to Finland which is why Anna lives in Finland, and is in part why she also joined the police force.Her mother has returned to live in the Balkan village of Kanisza which is where Anna was born. Anna decides to go "home" to visit, to catch up with childhood and family friends. Her handbag is snatched at a local market and eventually the thief is found dead. Whele her handbag is found, her passport and credit card are missing.The local police, including a former colleague of her father, seem very reluctant to investigate the death or to find the little girl who was with the thief. Anna's instincts tell her that there is something wrong and provoke her into undertaking her own investigation despite her mother's opposition. She makes a friend at the local police station and he helps her access files. The more she investigates the more she is convinced there is a cover-up happening. Anna feels the whole scenario has something to do with who she is.Refugees and gypsies are flooding into Kanisza which is near the border of Hungary and Serbia, in what was once called Yugoslavia, hence the title of the book.I did not find the book as unputdownable as the blurb suggested. In fact, just as in the first in the series, THE DEFENCELESS, I found the style strangely stilted, and Anna in particular a bit tunnel-visioned and naive. Nevertheless the story held my interestand was illuminating in terms of how people in this area are living.

[Lily Lee · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is awesome! I was able to talk about the book after I read it. You did well! ... If you have some great stories like this one, you can publish it on Novel Star, just submit your story to [e-mail] or [e-mail]

[atticusfinch1048 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The Exiled – An Excellent Crime Thriller The Exiled, proving why Kati Hiekkapelto is a brilliant writer and spearheading the Finnish invasion of English crime fiction as she is in top form again. The Exiled is the third in Heikkapelto’s Anna Fekete series that has been so popular in her native Finland, and for once there is no snow in this thriller, but plenty of twists turns as if on ice.Anna Fekete has finally decided to take a holiday and get out of Finland and head ‘home’ to the Balkan village of her birth, Kaniza in Serbia on the Hungarian border. A chance to spend time with her mother, her recovering addict brother and see her best friend before heading back to Finland to be the crime fighting whizz that she has become.While out at a local wine fair her handbag is stolen and Anna gives chase to the thief and a small girl whom seem to be in cahoots. When the thief is found dead on the banks of a local river, and the police do not seem interested in investigating, Anna is drawn in to the murder. As she begins to ask questions, the police seem even more distant, people want to place the blame on the Roma or the refugees trying to get in to the EU.The more Anna investigates the more questions that are raised, and she must be prepared for whatever answers that come back. At the same time the murder of Anna’s father in 1988 seems to have links to the murder, and the more she wants to know the less people are willing to help her. She is sent anonymous notes threatening her if she does not give up her investigation. There is even an attempt to run her over, but this only makes Anna more determined to investigate what is going on.Anna’s investigation brings her into confrontation with life on the border of the EU and to many refugees the ‘promised’ land, police corruption, the mafia and political corruption, human trafficking and how little people put a value on the life of others.The Anna Fekete series gets better with every new book that Kati Hiekkapelto writes and once again proves that she is on top of her chosen genre. Her writing continues to be fresh and exciting, while at the same time subversive and it is the reason that her reputation continues to grow and garner new fans. The Exiled is an excellent crime thriller that will enthral you with a brilliant story and characterisation that will leave you impressed, and wanting more.