HÉLÈNE GULLBERG

 
 

HÉLÈNE GULLBERG has worked as a specialist in works of art at the auction company Bukowski’s, as well as Stockholm Auction House, and is now a superintendent at The Royal Palace in Stockholm. She made her literary debut fall 2020, with the novel “The Preserved Widow” (Historiska Media), a historical novel about love, furniture, art, and women in the Gustavian era.

She has previously contributed to TV shows like “The History Eaters” (SVT) and “The Queens” (TV4), and is a co-writer of the book “Royal Parks – People and Stories” (InPress Art 2019). She is also a popular lecturer who loves to tell stories about history, people, and objects in an engaging way.

In 2023 her debut novel THE PROTÉGÉE was nominated for Best Swedish Debut by The Swedish Academy of Crime Fiction.

Photo Credit: Thron Ullberg

Agent: Erik Larsson

 
 

WORKS

THE NOVICE

 

published bazar, SEPTEMBER 2024
GENRE crime
pages 316

RIGHTS SOLD
NORWEGIAN: GYLDENDAL 1–2
GERMAN: DTV 1–2
FINNISH: MINERVA (WSOY) 1–3

Part 2 of Hélène Gullberg’s suspense series about Majja Skog.

All objects have secrets. It’s just a matter of uncovering them.

Majja Skog, a gifted and peculiar antiques expert, is obsessed with ancient objects and what they can tell us. She prefers to study them in peace, but her knowledge is in demand by the police. When a priest is found murdered in Storkyrkan in Gamla Stan, she is once again contacted by Detective Inspector Karin Klinga. A diamond-studded Chinese dragon brooch is found in the priest’s torn chest. Who could have placed it there with such brutality? And why?

The place is more than familiar to Majja. She was once allowed to live under the church in a crypt full of ancient artifacts. The priest and his wife introduced her to the art, history and rituals of the church. Do the fascinating treasures of the Great Church have something to do with the murder? Can Majja’s insights lead Karin and her colleagues in the hunt for the killer?

THE NOVICE is the second instalment in Hélène Gullberg’s acclaimed Majja Skog series about a world full of art, antiquities and dangerous secrets.

 
 

THE PROTÉGÉE

 
 

published bazar, may 2023
GENRE crime
pages 359

RIGHTS SOLD
NORWEGIAN: Gyldendal 1–2
german: dtv 1–2
fINNISH: minerva (wsoy) 1–3
sPANISH: SEIX BARRAL (PLANETA) 
Italian: Neri Pozza
UK (World english): pUSHKIN PRESS


 

Nominated for Best Crime Debut of the Year 2023 by the Swedish Academy of Crime Fiction

There is nothing that Sten Hammar loves more than art and antiquities. Even though his estate Hammarnäs is already filled to the brink with precious items, his appetite for beautiful objects seems insatiable. When Hammar is found murdered on his own property, it is first thought to be the result of a robbery, but the evidence soon points to foul play.  

Highly esteemed auction house Wallius sends Majja Skog – their overly gifted expert of antiquities – to the estate in order to value Sten’s collection.

As an eight-year-old, Majja became Sten Hammar's protégée. He brought her into the world of art and antiquities, turning her into a force of dual nature – a person with a wounded interior and a hard exterior, obsessed with the power that objects hold over us.

Detective Karin Klinga is fascinated by the enigmatic Majja, considering her personality something of a strange mixture of champagne and home-distilled hard liquor. What kind of darkness and memories does she carry with her? And is it possible that she knows more about the murder than she lets on?

THE PROTÉGÉE is the first book in Hélène Gullberg’s new ‘Majja Skog’-series.