Where Have All the Young Girls Gone

Leena Lehtolainen

Original title: Minne tytöt kadonneet

Author: Leena Lehtolainen

Published: 2010

Publisher: Tammi

Genre: Crime & Suspense

Pages: 342

Part of a series: Maria Kallio series

Reading material

Finnish edition

English edition

Maria Kallio, working on an EU project training Afghani police, travels to the opening ceremonies for the country’s new police academy. Disaster follows.

Upon returning home to Finland, Maria begins work as head of the newly-established Espoo Special Crimes Unit and is assigned to investigate the disappearance of three immigrant girls. The girls frequented the same girls club as Maria’s daughter Ida.

Then the body of a fourth Muslim girl is found in the snow, strangled with her own headscarf. Are the cases related? Is a serial killer on the move? Or did the girls’ families have something to do with the disappearances?

Leena Lehtolainen’s Where Have All the Young Girls Gone is an engrossing exploration of the collision between tradition and the new multicultural Europe. It is a journey into a world where daily life is defined by ancient beliefs and deeply ingrained, habitual perceptions. Who is in the right when there are two truths?

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Rights sold:
FINLAND: Tammi (orig.)
AUDIO: Word Audio
GERMANY: Rowohlt
NORWAY: Bazar Forlag AS
SWEDEN: Bazar
TV RIGHTS: Jarowskij Finland
UNITED STATES: Amazon Publishing

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About author

Leena Lehtolainen

Leena Lehtolainen is the top female crime author in Finland: her new titles always head straight to #1 on the Finnish bestseller lists.

Lehtolainen created her successful protagonist, detective Maria Kallio, in 1993. Having already featured in 16 novels and a complete TV series, a new Maria Kallio TV reboot series was launched in Fall 2021 on C More. Lehtolainen’s novels have been translated into 30 languages and have sold over 2.5 million copies worldwide.

And just like the events in Bodyguard, a that takes the heroine Hilja Ilveskero all around Europe, Lehtolainen’s own work takes her to book festivals, exhibitions and other events across the globe.

Leena Lehtolainen has also published outside the crime genre; her book The Charm of Figure Skating was voted sports book of the year 2010 in Finland, and A Life in Six Scenes showed her return to literary fiction.

The Crossing of the Green Dragon is her first title for YA audiences.

In her free time, Lehtolainen enjoys all kinds of music and follows lynx trails in the forests – just like Maria Kallio.

Photo credit: Ville Juurikkala