The Game Trilogy / H.P. Petterson Books in Order

The Game Trilogy is where de la Motte first made his name, and it still feels like the sharpest entry point if you want his most restless, tech-driven thriller writing. The setup in Game is simple and nasty in the best way. Henrik "HP" Pettersson, a reckless small-time hustler in Stockholm, finds a strange phone on a commuter train. The phone invites him to play. What begins as a thrill quickly turns into an alternate reality game where tasks are filmed, rated, rewarded, and pushed further each time.

HP is a big part of why the books move so fast. He is impulsive, selfish, funny, easily tempted, and always half a step away from disaster. Set against him is his sister Rebecca Normén, a disciplined police bodyguard who seems to belong to a totally different novel at first. She is careful where he is chaotic. She thinks ahead where he lunges. As the trilogy goes on, their two tracks slam together, and that sibling contrast gives the series both its speed and its emotional center.

These books run on adrenaline, ego, and surveillance.

Across Game, Buzz, and Bubble, the scale grows from one man's dangerous addiction to a much larger conspiracy involving tech, power, performance, and family history. The trilogy keeps asking the same ugly question in different ways: what will people do to be seen, validated, or turned into a winner in public? That makes the books feel very of their moment, with social media, viral attention, and private data always hovering in the background, but the need underneath it is older and more basic. HP wants to matter. The Game knows exactly how to use that.

Stockholm matters here as much as the concept does. The city feels wired, watched, and unstable, full of screens, transit lines, back rooms, and people who think they are anonymous right up until they are not. The tone is closer to a conspiracy thriller than a classic whodunit. There are twists, cliffhangers, and sudden reversals, but the real pull is the sense that the system is always one step ahead.

This is a trilogy that really should be read in order. Game lays the trap, Buzz widens it, and Bubble brings HP and Rebecca to the point where they have to face the people behind it. If you like fast plotting, morally messy characters, and crime fiction with a strong technology and media angle, this is de la Motte at full speed.