Scandinavian Crime Fiction

Two young women are missing, their only connection a party they both attended, hosted by a notorious real-estate magnate. When one of the women is found murdered, the police discover an unusual signature left by the killer, giving them reason to suspect he will strike again. And exposing him calls for a detective like no other. But the legendary Harry Hole is gone—fired from the force, drinking himself to oblivion in Los Angeles. It seems that nothing can entice him back to Oslo. Until the woman who saved Harry's life is put in grave danger.

When a boy leaps to his death from a bridge in the northern town of Umeå, Sweden, police discover drugs scattered in the snow near his body. The town has seen a dramatic increase in narcotic use among its youth, but nobody knows where the pills are coming from.

Detective Leonore Asker seems to have the leading position at Malmö’s Major Crime Division within reach. But things go awry when, in the middle of a high profile kidnapping case, management relegates her to the so-called Department of Lost Souls—the unit for odd, cold cases banished to the basement of the police station.

The Bucket List starts when undercover FBI Agent John Adderley wakes up in a hospital bed in Baltimore with extensive gunshot wounds. He knows he’s lucky to be alive. And just a few beds away is the man who 24 hours ago pointed a gun to his head. Soon, a high-profile cold-case file is sent to Agent Adderley, now living in Sweden (where he’s not lived since he was a boy) in witness protection, hiding until he can testify against the drug cartel he infiltrated back in the States. Adderley is determined to solve the case, even with a price on his head....

Magic and myth inhabit these chapters in figures both familiar and strange. Giant trolls and talking animals are everywhere. The winds take human form. A one-eyed old woman might seem reminiscent of the Norse god Odin. We meet sly aunts, resourceful princesses, and devious robbers. These stories, set in Norway's majestic landscape of towering mountains and dense forests, are filled with humor, mischief, and sometimes surprisingly cruel twists of fate. All are rendered in the deceptively simple narrative style perfected by Asbjørnsen and Moe.

The only person who might have the answers to a baffling murder case is the victim's seven-year-old daughter, found hiding in the room where her mother died. And she's not talking. Newly-promoted, out of his depth, detective Huldar turns to Freyja for her expertise with traumatized young people. Freyja, who distrusts the police in general and Huldar in particular, isn't best pleased. But she's determined to keep little Margret safe. It may prove tricky. The killer is leaving them strange clues: warnings in text messages, sums scribbled on bits of paper, numbers on the radio.

When a young woman is found brutally murdered in her own apartment with an intricate pattern of lines carved into her face, Copenhagen police detectives Jeppe Korner and Anette Werner are assigned to the case. Soon, they establish a link between the victim, Julie Stender, and her landlady, Esther de Laurenti, who’s a bit too fond of drink and the host of raucous dinner parties with her artist friends. Esther also turns out to be a budding novelist - and when Julie turns up as a murder victim in the unfinished mystery she’s writing, the link between fiction and real life grows.

Bill Olsson, recently widowed, is desperate to provide for his daughter, Sally. Struggling to pay rent, he welcomes a lodger into their home: Karla, a law student and aspiring judge, who works as a housekeeper to make ends meet. Her clients are the Rytters, an incredibly wealthy couple who hide behind closed doors. The wife is ill and hasn’t left the house in months. The husband is controlling and obsessive. Is he just a worried husband, concerned for his wife’s health? Or is there something more sinister at play?

Bringing Up Bébé meets Last Child in the Woods in this lively, insightful memoir about a mother who sets out to discover if the nature-centric parenting philosophy of her native Scandinavia holds the key to healthier, happier lives for her American children.

On the day Stockholm police officer Hanna Ahlander’s personal and professional lives crash, she takes refuge at her sister’s lodge in the Swedish ski resort paradise of Åre. But it’s a brief comfort. The entire village is shaken by the sudden vanishing of a local teenage girl. Hanna can’t help but investigate, and while searching for the missing person, she lands a job with the local police department. There she joins forces with Detective Inspector Daniel Lindskog, who has been tasked with finding the girl. Their only lead: a scarf in the snow.

Police discover the lifeless body of a young woman on an abandoned yacht. The next day, a man is found hanging in his apartment. When Detectives Joona Linna and Saga Bauer uncover a surprising connection between the two deaths, they realize they are up against a brutal killer and a ruthless business tycoon who preys on his victims’ worst nightmares to achieve his sinister ends.

The newspaper refers to the body only as Victim 2117 - the 2117th refugee to die in the Mediterranean Sea. But to three people, the unnamed victim is so much more, and the death sets off a chain of events that throws Department Q, Copenhagen’s cold cases division led by Detective Carl Mørck, into a deeply dangerous - and deeply personal - case. A case that not only reveals dark secrets about the past, but has deadly implications for the future.

In the Swedish ski resort of Åre, crime is rare. Certainly nothing so brutal as the murder of Johan Andersson, a former Olympic skier found bound and beaten to death in the forest. According to his distraught wife, he didn’t have any enemies in the world. To Detective Inspectors Hanna Ahlander and Daniel Lindskog, the crime proves otherwise. But what could have provoked such rage? And in whom?

DI Jamie Johansson is trying to find normality in Kurrajakk when she gets the chance to sit in on the Interpol interview linked to her last case. A pattern of mutilation and beheading on the Finnish border has Jamie's full attention, but Interpol seem more interested in the Russian connection. Begrudgingly, they let her follow up, and as usual, Jamie's nose for trouble doesn't steer her wrong.

A woman’s skeletal remains are excavated on an uninhabited island in Sandhamn’s archipelago, and Thomas Andreasson is called to officially investigate. But his best friend, Nora Linde, can’t help but get involved. On leave after her last case took a dark turn, Nora is tortured by depression, nightmares, and guilt. Her marriage fractured, her pride chipped away, Nora could find redemption in this investigation.

Una wants nothing more than to teach, but she has been unable to secure steady employment in Reykjavík. Her savings are depleted, her love life is nonexistent, and she cannot face another winter staring at the four walls of her shabby apartment. Celebrating Christmas and ringing in 1986 in the remote fishing hamlet of Skálar seems like a small price to pay for a chance to earn some teaching credentials and get her life back on track.

With the summer season on Sandhamn comes an unsettling mystery for Detective Inspector Thomas Andreasson. A bullied young boy has vanished from a sailing camp on neighboring Lökholmen Island. Has the terrorized eleven-year-old run away? Or, in this isolated vacation spot where strangers lurk, is it something more ominous?

An in-depth and personal exploration of Scandinavian crime fiction as a way into Scandinavian culture at large.

The body of a homeless woman is found in the river, viciously beaten and with all her teeth removed. A young immigrant, the prime suspect in a recent spate of robberies in Umeå, was seen running in the vicinity around the time the body was dumped. Trouble is, he hasn’t been seen since. When he does appear, in the town square, he’s wearing an explosive vest and holding a detonator.

On the eve of their thirtieth birthday, twins Jasmine and Nicolas Moretti celebrate late into the night. But when Nicolas wakes several hazy hours later, Jasmine is dead—and he is covered in her blood. Panicking, he takes the murder weapon and runs into the cold Stockholm night. For the police, it’s an open-and-shut case. Nicolas is guilty. And given that he remembers so little of what happened that night, even he isn’t convinced of his innocence.