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Cover of The Ones Who Remain
Chapter · ages 11–14

The Ones Who Remain

Written by Johan Rundberg

Book 5 in The Moonwind MysteriesView the full series

Adults love it too

The fifth and final Moonwind mystery brings orphan detective Mika and Constable Hoff's story to its close in the frozen streets of 1880 Stockholm, with the same atmospheric Nordic-noir suspense that has run through the series.

  • Best for11–14
  • FormatChapter
Where to buyPaperback
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The vibe

What it’s like.

Style

  • Literary
  • Conversational

Tone

  • Suspenseful
  • Dark
  • Exciting
  • Thought provoking

Themes

On the pagedetective, murder investigation, orphanage, victorian era

Experience meters

Energy4/ 5
Humour2/ 5
Scariness4/ 5
Peril4/ 5
Wonder2/ 5
Cosiness1/ 5
Emotional intensity4/ 5
Conceptual intensity3/ 5

What’s it about?

The story.

The Moonwind Mysteries reach their conclusion as orphan detective Mika and Constable Valdemar Hoff face a final case in the icy, dangerous Stockholm of 1880. Johan Rundberg's August Prize-winning series has combined standalone crimes with a slow-burning mystery about Mika's own origins, and this closing volume promises to bring those threads together. Translated from the Swedish, it continues the series' hallmark blend of gritty historical crime, spare and propulsive prose, and a fiercely clever heroine at the bottom of a cruel society. Best read after the earlier books, it is serious, chilling mystery for confident older readers. (A forthcoming volume: plot detail is not yet available, so this record is calibrated from the established series pattern rather than a full read, at lower confidence.)

Fit check

Right for your child?

Where it lands by age

For confident 11-14 readers who have followed the series, as it concludes an ongoing story and should be read last. It carries the series' dark, suspenseful tone and is not a bedtime or sensitive-child read. As a forthcoming title, its detail is inferred from the series at lower confidence.

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  • Best fit · 11–14
  • Read aloud · 11–14
  • Independent · 11–14

Prose load

Moderate

Visual support

None

Reluctant-reader friendly

Tougher fit

Read-aloud quality

Workable

High sensitivity4 content warnings

Preview before sharing if a child is sensitive to: death of character, violence, poverty or hardship, scary imagery.

Bedtime suitability

1 / 5 · Wide awake

Sensitive-child

1 / 5 · Tough fit

Graphic intensity

3 / 5 · Some

Best for

  • Mystery lovers
  • Confident readers
  • Nordic noir
  • Historical fiction

Avoid if

  • Wants gentle bedtime
  • Sensitive to violence

Why it lands

Why they love it.

Why kids love it

The series that follows a poor, brilliant orphan solving crimes in old Stockholm reaches its ending, and readers who have raced through the earlier books will want to be there when Mika's own secrets finally come to light.

  • Being a detective
  • Surviving danger
  • Proving yourself
  • The underdog winning

Why parents love it

The concluding volume of a well-written, atmospheric historical-crime series that has never talked down to its readers. Best read after the earlier books, and, like them, pitched at confident older children rather than the sensitive or very young.

  • Great writing
  • Conversation starter

In the series

The Moonwind Mysteries.

5 books · open the series →

About the author

Johan Rundberg.

JR

Johan Rundberg

Writer · Sweden

Johan Rundberg is a Swedish author, based in Stockholm, who writes across picture books, early readers and middle grade. He is best known internationally for the Moonwind Mysteries, a Nordic-noir crime series set in the frozen, poverty-stricken Stockholm of 1880 and following Mika, a sharp-eyed orphan girl recruited by a detective to help hunt killers through the city's cruellest streets. The series opener, The Night Raven, won Sweden's prestigious August Prize in the children's and young-adult category. Translated into English by A. A. Prime and Eva Apelqvist, the books are atmospheric, genuinely dark historical thrillers — unflinching about hardship, cruelty and death, yet warmed by Mika's grit and an unlikely found family. Serious, propulsive mystery for confident older readers ready for a proper thriller with real weight.

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