Follow the Butterfly

Can she cure a killer? An addictive psychological thriller in the spirit of Gillian Flynn!

Ira, 20, a serial killer who was abducted as a child, starts therapy with celebrity therapist Clarissa. Only one of them knows that they share a mutual secret from the past. Will the other one realize it before she gets murdered?

Clarissa is a middle-aged psychotherapist, the best in her field. She is familiar to everyone from her TV appearances and from glossy magazines. For her, every patient is a princess. And someone only she can save. Or can she? Clarissa already has one suicide to answer for; a teenage boy’s death never seizes to haunt her.

When Ira becomes Clarissa’s patient, a cat-and-mouse game begins in which rules are followed by no one. The kind of game that never ends well.

  • Harrogate New Blood.
  • A Spiegel bestseller.
  • One of Literary Review magazine’s crime novels of the year 2024 picks.

Follow the Butterfly has been published in the following countries:

U.S.A
England
Egypt
Germany
Italy
Denmark
Croatia
Czechia
Poland
Lithuania
Latvia
Hungary
Estonia
Greece
Iceland


Reviews

”Follow the Butterfly is the portrait of a failing marriage, a demonstration of the perils and pitfalls of “the talking cure” and a brilliant game of cat and mouse between author and reader. [–] Whether, in the end, you believe either of them, there’s no denying the pieces of this psychological thriller fit together as ingeniously as those in a Chinese puzzle box.\”

Mark Sanderson, The Times

”This first novel by Finnish film critic Martta Kaukonen is a fascinating study in guilt, shame, blame and the stories we tell ourselves to make life bearable. [–] The delivery of information, both real and false, is beautifully handled. The portrait of the vain and self-deceiving therapist is chilling, and the ultimate revelation of what has been going on in all four lives is horribly convincing.”

Natasha Cooper, Literary Review

”The most suspenseful and surprising book in a long time. Only a few sentences in I realised: I am the fly in the spider net.”

Ulla Müller, Bayern 1 radio

Prizes

2024 Nominated for the Viktor Crime Award. A prestigious prize hosted by Germany’s most successful thriller author Sebastian Fitzek.
2024 Nominated for the The Glass Key Award (Glasnyckeln/Glasnøglen). The Glass Key Award is an award by the Scandinavian Crime Novel Society and is given out to a book written by a Danish, Finnish, Icelandic, Norwegian or Swedish author each year.
2021 Nominated for the Savonia Award. A Finnish Literary Prize.
2021 Shadow Savonia. Readers favourite.