The Winners

The Winners is the third and final novel in Fredrik Backman's Beartown trilogy, following Beartown and Us Against You. A ferocious late-summer storm hits the Swedish forest towns of Beartown and Hed just as the death of Ramona, the bar owner everyone leaned on, calls the people who left back home.

Maya, Benji and the rest of the old crowd reunite with the friends who stayed, while Amat tries to find his way after a hockey career that stalled, and the old rivalry between the two towns flares as resources run short.

Over about two weeks, the book moves between a large ensemble and asks what a community owes its own, and what winning is worth. It is warm and funny in places and turns dark toward the end. Readers new to the series will get more from it after reading the first two books.