Three Seconds (original title: Tre sekunder) is a dark thriller by the Swedish crime-writing team of Anders Roslund and Borge Hellström.
The novel deals with criminals in contemporary Sweden, the Police and Probation Officials who monitor these offenders, and the government who wants to use them as undercover operatives.
He survives on vending machine coffee and cakes; sleeps on the couch in his office; and knows his body and spirit are falling apart.
Grens is also the hero of four earlier novels by Roslund and Hellstöm—The Beast (2004), Box 21 (2005), Redemption (2006), and The Girl Below the Street (2007)—and two later, "Two Soldiers" (2012) and "Three Minutes" (2016).
Three Seconds unfolds primarily in the streets and apartments of Stockholm and in Aspsås Prison, a fictional jail located not too far outside the city.