Mayday

Get ready to be thrilled by a brand new heroine, Ylva Norvahl.

Fighter pilot Ylva Norvahl has returned to her hometown, Bodo, in Norway's frozen north where tension is escalating across the border with Russia. NATO has launched the "Arctic Blizzard" excercise, mobilising 60,000 soldiers, many of them American.

All it takes is one false move to trigger a major political crisis, or even a war.

When her plane is forced down over Russian territory, Ylva and the veteran U.S. Major John Evans must race against time across a frozen landscape to avoid capture by the Russian Spetsnaz special forces in pursuit. Complicating their journey is Evans' involvement with an American military contractor Titans Security which has its own agenda across international frontiers.

As the hunt closes in, Ylva uses her local Sami knowledge to survive in the excruciating cold, and her family history reveals dark secrets of its own in this geopolitical game of chess.

Grethe Boe is a Norwegian screenwriter and award-winning film director. Mayday is her first novel.

Charlotte Barslund is a translator of Scandinavian literature. Her translation of Karin Fossum's Calling Out For You was nominated for a Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger award.