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Elin Olofsson

Elin Olofsson (b. 1979) is a journalist and author currently living in Gamla stan, Stockholm. She made her literary debut in 2013 with the novel Då tänker jag på Sigrid. Since then, she has written several acclaimed novels, all portraying the lives and conditions of women across different times and circumstances.

Her upcoming novel, Lackey, will be published by Wahlström & Widstrand in autumn 2025 and marks a new chapter in her literary career. A suspenseful historical novel set in the 1930s, it launches a series introducing us to a secret society of female spies—Mother Svea—operating on the margins of the larger political schemes.

Olofsson also hosts two podcasts: Manusbubblan (The Writer’s Bubble) and Fotbollsbokklubben (The Football Book Club).

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Cover by Miroslav Sokcic

Lackey (Wahlström & Widstrand, Sweden 2025)

1936. Alma Matsson has been trying hard to rebuild her life as an independent woman in the bustling capital, where job opportunities are few and money hard to come by. Her former employer—the Prime Minister’s secret intelligence agency, Mother Svea—lures her back into service with the promise of one final mission and a full year’s wages.

Under cover, Alma is dispatched to a northern resort in the Jämtland mountains, where the industrialist and increasingly popular right-wing leader Konrad Crantz has withdrawn from public view. Alma manages to secure work as a maid in Crantz’s hunting castle, with the aim to uncover what Crantz and his followers are planning for the upcoming autumn election—and, hopefully, to find something that could halt the populist party’s rise.

But when a bomb explodes on the estate, killing a young man, the assignment quickly turns into one of life and death. At the same time, Alma finds herself drawn to a member of Crantz’s staff—breaking one of Mother Svea’s cardinal rules: never fall in love on the job. Because if your judgement falters, if you place your trust in someone outside the agency, the consequences can be devastating. Not just for you, but for the fragile security of the state itself.

Lackey is a finely crafted historical suspense novel and a riveting reading experience, with an unconventional heroine and a vividly portrayed era that echoes uncannily into our own present.

Elin Olofsson about Lackey

"There are locked rooms you might try to gain access to. Dark corners to explore. Bin bags that can be slit open and searched through. From what you find, you can draw conclusions about human nature. And you can pass that story on.
Perhaps the leap from authorship to espionage isn’t such a large one.
At least, that’s what I thought when I began writing Lackey.

I’ve set the first book in the series about the female spies of Mother Svea—the Prime Minister’s private secret intelligence agency—in 1936. This choice stems from my personal interest in history and politics, and in what truly shapes us and our lives. Not on the grand societal scale, but at the level of individual fates—my protagonists.

The idea that my spies present themselves outwardly as maids came to me early on. After all, who knows more about people than those who clean up after them in their homes and workplaces? I myself worked briefly as a cleaner, and I know just how much can be gleaned from a single wastepaper bin.

While writing Lackey, I’ve watched our own time begin to resemble the 1930s more and more.
Far-right winds are sweeping through many countries.
More war. More rearmament. Spies being exposed. Societies turning inward.

But there are still pockets of resistance.
Pockets filled with the will to fight. With courage. With adventure. With humour. With cake and beer. With love.

From these ingredients, I created Alma Matsson, my heroine.
In Lackey, we follow her all the way to the dramatic finale.
And from her—and from me—more stories will emerge."

Bibliography

Lakej / Lackey (Wahlström & Widstrand, Sweden 2025, upcoming)
Herravälde / Dominion (Wahlström & Widstrand, Sweden 2019)
Krokas / Crooked Paths (Wahlström & Widstrand, Sweden 2017)
Die Hoffnung zwischen den Zeilen (C. Bertelsmann, Germany 2019, in translation by Nina Hoyer)
Klikaté cesty (Motto, Czech Republic 2019, in translation by Jana Chmura-Svatošová)
Gånglåt (Wahlström & Widstrand, Sweden 2016)
Till flickorna i sjön (Wahlström & Widstrand, Sweden 2014)
Då tänker jag på Sigrid (Wahlström & Widstrand, Sweden 2013)

Awards

2018 – Shortlisted for Studieförbundet Vuxenskolan’s Author Prize (Krokas)
2017 – Awarded Krokom Municipality’s Culture Prize
2016 – Awarded Länstidningen i Östersund’s Culture Prize
2016 – Shortlisted for Norrland’s Literature Prize for Best Novel (Gånglåt)
2016 – Shortlisted for Bonnier Bokklubbar’s Novel of the Year (Gånglåt)
2015 – Shortlisted for Studieförbundet Vuxenskolan’s Author Prize (Till flickorna i sjön)
2014 – Awarded the Carl Zetterström Medal

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