Aud Torvingen is a rangy six-footer with eyes the color of cement and the tendency to hurt people who get in her way. Born in Norway, a land of ice and snow, she now lives in Atlanta, luxuriating in the lush heat and brashness of the New South, gliding easily between the worlds of the elegant elite and the criminal underbelly: beautiful and functional as a folded razor. On an April evening between thunderstorms, Aud turns a corner and collides with a running woman. She catches the scent of clean, rain-wet hair, thinks  Today, you are lucky , and moves on—and behind her the house explodes in a tiger-lily of flames. When Aud turns back, the woman is gone. But the woman, Julia, returns, seeking Aud's protection in a deadly international game of art forgery, drugs, money laundering and murder. But Aud knows danger. When danger sits opposite and offers you the dice, you should walk away. Danger loads the dice, it cheats. But for Julia, Aud will play—and risk losing herself in that cool blue place where everything slows to crystal clarity and violence is bliss... Nicola Griffith's  The Blue Place  reshapes the noir suspense novel into something refreshing, and excitingly new. "A dangerous world of drug rings, art forgery and double-crosses, and a powerful erotic bond, told in lush and potent prose." — Seattle Times "Nicola Griffith's Aud Torvingen novels are among the finest, most original crime fiction I've read...I am forever Ms. Griffith's fan." ―Robert Crais "Aud is a hero we need now more than ever...Griffith has created one of the most intriguing and most unforgettable characters in detective fiction―or really anywhere." ―Ivy Pochoda "WIthout Aud, it's hard to see how there could have been a Lisbeth Salander." ―Val McDermid Nicola Griffith (she/her) is a dual UK/US citizen living in Seattle. She is the author of award-winning novels including Hild and Ammonite , and her shorter work has appeared in Nature , New Scientist , New York Times , etc. She is the founder and co-host of #CripLit, holds a PhD from Anglia Ruskin University, and enjoys a ferocious bout of wheelchair boxing. She is married to novelist and screenwriter Kelley Eskridge.