Silvertail lands Malmström crime thriller

Silvertail has snapped up Kult by Stefan Malmström and will publish the English translation by Suzanne Martin Cheadle next month. 

The indie bought world rights excluding Swedish directly from the author. Kult will be published in trade paperback and ebook on 5th September. 

The crime thriller follows reformed criminal Luke Bergmann as he investigates the death of his best friend Viktor and his four-year-old daughter in the Swedish city of Karlskrona. 

"The police quickly conclude it was a murder-suicide, a tragedy requiring no further investigation. But Luke Bergmann, a reformed criminal still haunted by his violent past, believes they are wrong. The dead man, Viktor, was his best friend, and Luke knows he would never commit such a horrific crime," reads the synopsis. "When more bodies turn up, Luke embarks alone on an investigation which reaches back through decades to his friend’s involvement with a sinister cult – the Church of Scientology. And when Luke finds himself in a killer’s sights, his search for the truth becomes the fight of his life."

Malmström is a former news journalist who has worked for Sveriges Radio and Swedish TV4. Kult, his debut novel, based on his experiences in the Church of Scientology.

Silvertail publisher Humfrey Hunter said: "Kult is both a brilliant crime thriller and an important insight into how the Church of Scientology has treated its members. I am proud that Silvertail has previously published books on the subject by the likes of Lawrence Wright, John Sweeney, Tony Ortega, Leah Remini, and Steve Cannane and Stefan Malmström is a worthy addition to the list. Stefan used his own extraordinary experiences, along with one of the most darkly tragic episodes in Scientology’s history, when writing Kult and did so bravely and with great skill and sensitivity. I cannot wait for readers to see the result. This is a high class crime thriller."