The following version of this book was used to create the guide: Backman, Fredrik. Anxious People. Simon & Schuster, 2020.

A middle-aged person in a mask tries to rob a bank in a small town in Sweden. They are looking to steal exactly one month’s rent. They were recently divorced and lost their job due to their spouse and boss having an affair. They managed to pay one month’s rent until they found a job, but their job is withholding wages until the second month, and the bank refused them a loan. Their spouse’s lawyer said they could lose custody of their daughters if homeless, so the robber was desperate.

The bank is cashless, so the robber flees, unsuccessful, but the teller calls the police. The robber runs into a nearby apartment building to hide from the police, where the only open door is an apartment being viewed for sale. The robber takes the prospective buyers hostage: an old woman, a bank manager, a retired couple, and young pregnant couple.

Two police officers who are father and son, Jack and Jim, try to find the missing robber after all the hostages have been set free and the apartment is empty. Their search, including witness reports, is interwoven with the narrator’s recount of what happened in the apartment.

Jack has a need to save people spanning from when he was a teenager and saw a man on a bridge. He tried to save him, but the man jumped. A week later, he saw a teenage girl on the bridge, and pulled her down before she could jump. She was knocked unconscious, so they never met each other.

The man on the bridge jumped because he invested all of his savings to provide for his children, on the bank’s advice. But the housing market crashed, and it all turned to debt, and the bank manager, who is a hostage now, told him it was his own fault for investing. He wrote the manager a letter before he jumped, and she has carried it with her every day, scared to read it.

Zara, the bank manager, saw Jack save the girl when she happened to visit the bridge. She found the girl’s wallet and ID and watched her life from afar ever since. The girl, Nadia, became a psychologist and Zara begins to see her in the months before the robbery.

At the apartment, the retired couple, Roger and Anna-Lena, who move constantly to flip apartments, compete with the young, bickering, Julia and Ro for the apartment. The bathroom is locked and they discover a man, Lennart, who Anna-Lena hires to disrupt apartment viewings to discourage other buyers so Roger will feel like a good negotiator. Roger feels betrayed, and is angry. Anna-Lena cries in the walk-in closet.

Julia joins Anna-Lena and bonds with her, discussing their love for their spouses which manifests strangely. Estelle, the old woman, joins them.

Zara and Lennart talk on the balcony, intrigued by each other.

The robber, Ro, and Roger bond in the front hall. Ro admits her and Julia have been fighting from stress of being new parents, and because she always finds fault in the apartments they view, scared to make a decision without the input of her father who has dementia. Roger tells Ro she will be fine, and to buy the apartment.

They decide to ask the police for pizza, who have gathered with reporters outside. Roger takes everyone’s order and asks for eight pizzas.

Jack, investigating afterwards, realizes that the robber, hostages, and realtor, total nine people, yet only eight pizzas were ordered. He also realizes the witnesses have not mentioned the realtor at all. He believes the realtor he is interviewing is actually the robber, hiding in plain sight.

The narrator reveals the robber is a woman, as they used gender neutral pronouns to describe her up until this point.

Lennart joins the women in the walk-in closet and hears noise coming from the ceiling. He finds a hatch above the ceiling where the realtor is hiding. She was hiding in the closet at the start of the viewing to give herself a pep-talk, and crawled into the hatch when she heard someone yell about a robbery.

Jim delivers the pizzas alone. The robber decides to speak to him, mask off, wanting to stop hiding. He feels sympathy for her, and asks her what happened. She tells him her story. He thinks about his deceased wife, who was a priest who always tried to save people. He decides to help her. He remembers from calling the neighboring apartment that the couple who owns it is gone, as they are splitting up, and are selling with the same agency he sees advertised on the hostage apartment. He tells her to ask the realtor for the key to hide there.

The robber goes inside. Jim lies to Jack, saying the robber was a man. The realtor does not have the key to the other apartment, but Estelle does. The hostage apartment is hers, she was posing as a buyer to make sure her apartment would go to someone nice. They eat pizza and enjoy each other’s company. Julia tells Roger Anna-Lena hired Lennart out of love.

Jim stands in the stairwell as the hostages walk out. The robber hides in the other apartment.

The hostages go to the police station, are interviewed and then dismissed. The robber texts Estelle that she is ok. She will move in with Estelle, who does not sell her apartment. Julia and Ro decide to buy the place next door.

Jim tells Jack the truth, he also does not give the robber up.

Zara recognized Jack when interviewed. She introduces him to Nadia. Zara finally reads the letter from the man, which said his death was not her fault.