DEAD WEIGHT (DICTE 9)

DØDVÆGT / DEAD WEIGHT

by Elsebeth Egholm

During a storm in the Mediterranean between Malta and the sister island of Gozo, a refugee boat from Libya capsizes. Dicte and her boyfriend Bo are on their way to Gozo with a team of photography students and witness the disaster. Bo’s student, Natasha, clicks away with the camera and captures both the ferry’s seasick passengers, the dead Africans in the sea and the surprise: the body of a young woman floating in the waves between all the men. When Bo and Natasha later disappear, Dicte and local detective Jack Spiteri piece it together with Natasha’s photos. One of the ferry’s passengers looks confusingly like the dead woman in the sea. And when Natasha’s body is found at the foot of the cliffs, while Bo is gone, the questions really arise: Who are the two identical girls, and why did one die? What kind of knowledge has cost Natasha her life? To know Bo’s fate, Dicte has to work closely with a man she is more than attracted to. The investigation kicks into high gear when the body of yet another young girl washes up on the coast of Sicily, and a conscience-stricken Dicte must deal with the old truth that white lives are valued more than black lives.