Nordic noirs have started gaining prominence in recent years, with titles like The Valhalla Murders and Detective Forst ranking high amidst original series with high viewership counts. Netflix’s Swedish thriller, The Are Murders, is the latest addition to the list, an adaptation of Viveca Sten’s two novels from the Sandhamn murder series, “Hidden in Snows” and “Hidden in Shadows.” The series focuses on two separate cases—while the first three episodes chronicle the murder investigation of teenager Amanda, the following two episodes revolve around the death of former skier Johan Andersson. Both the cases, set in Are—a small picturesque Swedish locality—are handled by the detective duo Daniel and Hanna, who must uncover the troubling secrets concealed underneath the seemingly peaceful, family-oriented community.
Spoilers Ahead
Why Was Lasse Suspected In Amanda’s Murder?
Seventeen-year-old teenager Amanda goes missing while returning from the party hosted at her best friend Ebba’s place. Amanda had tried to reach her father, Harald, who couldn’t respond as he was busy with his secretary, Mira—with whom he is having an affair. Hanna Ahlander, a detective from the Stockholm police department who has recently been suspended and is under investigation, had just arrived at Are to spend a few days away from the drudgeries of life, but gets drawn into the case, and requests the local PD chief to let her join the investigation. Daniel, who is already assigned to the case, initially doesn’t like Hanna’s interference, and upon learning about her past, grows wary about Hanna but later on opens up to her.
Initially, Amanda’s boyfriend, Viktor, is suspected to have been involved in her disappearance, as Hanna learns about his abusive, jealous tendencies. However, Viktor is cleared after his alibi checks out, and Amanda’s corpse is found in the ski resort cable car. Ebba appears to be hiding something from the investigators, and checking the surveillance footage from the party, it is revealed that she and Amanda were arguing about someone. The focus shifts to Lasse Sandahl, a teacher at Amanda and Ebba’s school who is revealed to have been manipulating Ebba for a long while and grooming her. Amanda had become aware of this and had threatened Lasse with consequences, which made Hanna and Daniel consider the possibility that he had murdered her to cover up his crimes. They even caught Lasse red-handed when he was trying to blackmail Ebba, but he wasn’t responsible for Amanda’s demise. Mira’s husband, Frederik, is suspected by Harald, who thinks he has taken revenge on him for having an affair with Mira by killing Amanda. As Harald tries to threaten Frederik, he confesses to having killed their family dog, Ludde, but denies having had anything to do with Amanda’s murder.
Why Did Bosse Murder Amanda?
Hanna had noticed a lump sum of cash in Amanda’s room and was able to learn from Lasse that she was selling valuables to accumulate cash for reasons unknown. Hanna’s attention was drawn to Zuhra, a cleaning service attendant who frequented Amanda’s house and also worked at Hanna’s sister’s place as well. Hanna had learned about recent incidents of thefts reported by clients who had opted for the cleaning service company where Zuhra was employed, and finding her missing, Hanna decided to meet with the owner of the company, Annika Risberg. Hanna had reason to believe that Amanda and Zuhra were involved in something that concerned the cleaning service company, and her hunch was right.
Annika and her husband, Bosse, who ran an NGO for missing persons, were reputed members of the community and lived quite a lavish lifestyle—but the reality was uglier than the façade of superficiality made outsiders believe. Annika’s company was operating at a loss, and to turn things around, Bosse had come up with a dastardly plan. He used his NGO to traffic desperate and helpless immigrants like Zuhra, assigned them to his wife’s company, and extorted them for money by taking away their passports. As a result, Zuhra was forced to steal from the clients for whom she worked, and Amanda had become aware of the entire thing. She helped Zuhra to send money to her mother by selling the stolen goods and directly confronted Bosse about this human-trafficking racket he was running in the guise of running an NGO. This was a mistake on her part as Bosse strangled her to death and left her corpse in the cable car. After Hanna’s investigation brought her close to Annika and Zuhra, she was close to discovering the truth, which prompted Bosse to nearly kill her. Hanna was saved by the timely arrival of Daniel, and Bosse eventually confessed to his crimes.
Why Did Ole Become a Suspect in Johan’s Murder?
The second case takes off several months after Amanda’s murder investigation, and by this time Daniel and Hanna have become good partners. A thirty-five-year-old Johan Andersson’s dismembered body was found close to a railway bridge, which initially made it seem like it might have been a train accident, but eventually it was revealed that Johan had sustained blunt force trauma, unrelated to the accident. Johan’s wife, Marion, and Leo, her son with her first husband, Jens, appear distraught as they seemingly shared a good relationship with him. Marion reveals Johan might have been with his friend, Carl Willner—who was involved in a brief romantic fling with one of Daniel’s colleagues, Anton Lundgren. Carl’s involvement in the murder is suspected by the investigators after they discover his vehicle appears to have been used to dump Johan’s corpse, but later on Carl is revealed to be innocent, much to Anton’s relief.
Focus shifts to the local pastor, Ole, who, contrary to his image as a devoted man of faith and morally upright person, is an abusive, manipulative husband to his pregnant wife Rebecka. Turns out, Rebecka had an affair with Johan, who wanted to take her away from her abusive husband after she became pregnant with Johan’s child. Ole had learned about this, and the repetitive red herring-dangling tendency of the narrative almost makes it seem that a vengeful Ole killed Johan in the first place. Hanna, who was in the domestic violence unit in Stockholm PD, is able to recognize Rebecka as a victim of her husband’s oppressive control and decides to offer her protection by taking her away from Ole. This results in a psychotic, vengeful Ole trying to capture Rebecka, and upon being cornered by the authorities, he tries to kill her. However, Daniel ends up shooting Ole to death, though it is later revealed that he wasn’t Johan’s killer after all.
Who Killed Johan Andersson?
Hanna and Daniel find discrepancies in the statement shared by Johan’s wife when her alibi about being absent on the night of Johan’s murder doesn’t add up, and very conveniently she had started planning to leave town with Leo and Jens for a couple of days. After finding possible circumstantial evidence of murder at Marion’s place, Hanna began suspecting she was involved in Johan’s murder, and after overhearing their conversation, Leo was unable to bear the burden of hiding the truth any longer. He tried to take his life by rushing to the train tracks, but Hanna’s timely intervention saved his life. As it turns out, Marion had become aware of Johan’s affair with Rebecka, and his decision to leave Marion for her resulted in a heated argument between the husband and wife. As Johan was leaving her, Leo, a teenager who couldn’t bear seeing his mother in a sorry state, ended up hitting Johan on the head with a shovel in the heat of the moment. He couldn’t have imagined that this would result in a fatal injury that would take Johan’s life, and to save their son from facing dire consequences, Jens and Marion meticulously disposed of Johan’s body.
In the end, all three of them were taken into custody, and the investigators returned to their lives. Marion and Jens will get their due as accomplices in Johan’s murder, but the most tragic part is a teenage Leo’s future is already ruined before it began.
