The story has underlying sadness that's common to stories written by Izumi Kizara.
Unfortunately, Nikolai discovers that his younger brother, a local cop, may be implicated in the crime and thus crosses a line in trying to cover for him.
The town in question is in Varjakka, northern Finland, and is a devoutly Laestadian Lutheran community.
I mean, I literally did the same thing that my mother did when she left Vietnam.
The series starts off with the circumstances surrounding the brutal death of a Frenchman named Pierre Carnot in Kiruna, the northernmost town in the Swedish Lapland.
Any kind of murder is inexcusable, of course, but Quicksand dives into the circumstances leading up to it and the extent to which the suspect was really involved.