English Translations of Scandinavian/Nordic Mysteries & Thrillers discussion

For the month of March 2022 we have the choice of nine books to read from. Please note, if we find more books published during March we will include them. Good reading. The books are:

1) Girl in Ice by Erica Ferencik to be published on the 1st of March 2022. Greenland.

From the author of The River at Night and Into the Jungle comes a harrowing new thriller set in the unforgiving landscape of the Arctic Circle, as a brilliant linguist struggling to understand the apparent suicide of her twin brother ventures hundreds of miles north to try to communicate with a young girl who has thawed from the ice alive.

Valerie “Val” Chesterfield is a linguist trained in the most esoteric of disciplines: dead Nordic languages. Despite her successful career, she leads a sheltered life and languishes in the shadow of her twin brother Andy, an accomplished climate scientist stationed on a remote island off Greenland’s barren coast. But Andy is gone: a victim of suicide, having willfully ventured unprotected into 50 degree below zero weather. Val is inconsolable—and disbelieving. She suspects foul play.

When Wyatt, Andy’s fellow researcher in the Arctic, discovers a scientific impossibility­—a young girl frozen in the ice who thaws out alive, speaking a language no one understands—Val is his first call. Will she travel to the frozen North and meet this girl, try to comprehend what she is so passionately trying to communicate? Under the auspices of helping Wyatt interpret the girl’s speech, Val musters every ounce of her courage and journeys to the Artic to solve the mystery of her brother’s death.

The moment she steps off the plane, her fear threatens to overwhelm her. The landscape is fierce, and Wyatt, brilliant but difficult, is an enigma. But the girl is special, and Val’s connection with her is profound. Only something is terribly wrong; the child is sick, maybe dying, and the key to saving her lies in discovering the truth about Wyatt’s research. Can his data be trusted? And does it have anything to do with how and why Val’s brother died? With time running out, Val embarks on an incredible frozen odyssey—led by the unlikeliest of guides—to rescue the new family she has found in the most unexpected of places.

2) The Land of Short Sentences by Stine Pilgaard to be published on the 1st of March 2022. Denmark.

Where small talk is a big deal

A young woman relocates to an outlying community in West Jutland, Denmark, and is forced to find her way, not only in the bewildering environment of the residential Folk High School where her partner has been hired to teach, but also in the inscrutable conversational forms of the local population. And on top of it all, there’s the small matter of juggling her roles as mother to a newborn baby and advice columnist in the local newspaper. In this understated and hilarious novel, Stine Pilgaard conjures a tale of venturing into new and uncharted land, of human relationships, dilemmas, and the ways and byways of social intercourse.

Translated from Danish by Hunter Simpson.

3) The Blister at the End of the World: A Constable Petra Jensen Short Novel by Christoffer Petersen to be published on the 1st of March 2022. Greenland. I note that this was published on the 25th of December 2021. And will take it off.

Greenland grabs the attention of the world when a famous British teenager goes missing during a school trip to the Arctic.

In this short novel, Constable Petra Jensen struggles to cope with the notorious British tabloid press, and when the girl disappears, Petra becomes the face of the search for the missing teenager.

The Blister at the End of the World is the twelfth in the Greenland Missing Persons series of novellas and novels set in the harsh, unpredictable Arctic, rich in tradition, myth and culture.

The Blister at the End of the World continues the adventures of Constable Petra ‘Piitalaat’ Jensen, ably assisted by interesting characters, together with a few familiar faces making cameo appearances in the series.

The Greenland Missing Persons stories are set prior to The Ice Star and Seven Graves, One Winter.

4) A Night of Flames by Matthew Harffy to be published on the 3rd of March 2022. Viking.

A wild land. A lethal fanatic. A violent revolt.
Northumbria, AD 794.
Those who rule the seas, rule the land. None know the truth of this more than the Vikings. To compete with the sea-faring, violent raiders, the king of Northumbria orders the construction of his own longships under the command of oath-sworn Norseman, Runolf.

When the Northern sea wolves attack for the second year, the king sends cleric turned warrior, Hunlaf, on a mission across the Whale Road to persuade the king of Rogaland into an alliance. But Runolf and Hunlaf have other plans; old scores to settle, kin to seek out, and a heretical tome to find in the wild lands of the Norse.

Their voyage takes them into the centre of a violent uprising. A slave has broken free of his captors, and, with religious fervour, he is leading his fanatical followers on a rampage – burning all in his path.

Hunlaf must brave the Norse wilderness, and overcome deadly foes to stop this madman. To fail would see too many die...

5) Vigilante by Rob Sinclair to be published on the 9th of March 2022. Norway, Greece.

From the author of The Red Cobra, a new thriller featuring a spy on a journey across Europe in search of a killer . . .

James Ryker thought he'd gotten the gangsters out of the Norwegian town of Blodstein, so when he hears of a wave of murders, it gets his attention. Then he discovers that an unidentified teenager has been found dead in Crete, and the description of the victim raises an alarm--could the boy be Henrik Svenson, who Ryker had once rescued in Blodstein?

To get some answers, Ryker heads for Athens--and meets the seductive but duplicitous Eleni. Soon the search begins for a known associate of the elusive Eastern European drug kingpin known only as Jesper. But just as it looks like he's about to get a break in the case, Ryker finds himself in jail for murder.

Someone is setting him up--and after two Russian agents visit him in prison, things take a turn he never expected . . .

6) The Might by Siri Pettersen to be published on the 15th of March 2022. Norway.

Hirka prepares to meet the ruling house of a cold, hierarchical world where contempt for weakness is paramount. Reluctantly, she accepts her fate, hoping to keep Rime alive and Ymslanda safe. But the dead borns thirst for the Might is absolute and Hirka realize that war she wanted to prevent, is inevitable. An awareness that will soon challenge everything she ever believed in and fought for.

‘The Might’ is the third and final book in the acclaimed fantasy series ‘The Raven Rings’. A spectacular finale that explores roots, power and arrogance.

7) Reptile Memoirs by Silje O. Ulstein to be published 0n the 15th of March 2022. Norway.

A bestselling Norwegian debut already sold in thirteen territories, Reptile Memoirs is a brilliantly twisty and unusual literary thriller for fans of Gillian Flynn, Jo Nesbø, Kate Atkinson, and Tana French, asking the question: Can you ever really shed your skin?

Liv has a lot of secrets. For her, home is the picturesque town of Ålesund, perched on a fjord in western Norway. One night, in the early-morning embers of a great party in the basement apartment she shares with two friends, Liv is watching TV, high on weed, and sees a python on an Australian nature show. She becomes obsessed with the idea of buying a snake as a pet. Soon Nero, the baby Burmese python, becomes the apartment's fourth roommate. As Liv bonds with Nero, she feels extremely protective, like a caring mother, and she is struck by a desire that surprises her with its intensity. Finally she is safe.

Thirteen years later, in the nearby town of Kristiansund, Mariam Lind goes on a shopping trip with her eleven-year-old daughter, Iben, who angers her mother by asking for a magazine one too many times. Mariam storms off, leaving Iben in the shop and, expecting her young daughter to find her own way home, heads off on a long calming drive. When she returns home in the evening, her husband is relieved to see her but terrified that Iben isn't also there. Detective Roe Olsvik is assigned to the case of Iben's disappearance; he has just turned sixty and is new to the Kristiansund police department. As he interrogates Mariam, he instantly suspects her--but there is much more to this case and these characters than their outer appearances would suggest.

A biting and constantly shifting tale of family secrets, rebirth, and the legacy of trauma, Reptile Memoirs is a brilliant exploration of the cold-bloodedness of humanity, and the struggle to mend broken lives and families.

8) A Harmless Lie by Sara Blaedel to be published on the 22nd of March 2022. Denmark.

A woman is haunted by a heartwrenching decision she made as a teenager in this darkly atmospheric, deeply emotional thriller from #1 internationally bestselling global superstar Sara Blaedel.

Detective Louise Rick is on a beach in Thailand when the panicked call from her father comes through. Louise′s beloved brother, Mikkel, has attempted suicide. His wife, Trine, left him days earlier, walking out the door one day with no warning and leaving Mikkel devastated.

Louise rushes home to Osted, the small, insular Danish town where she grew up and where Mikkel still lives. But the more Louise learns about Trine--a devoted wife and the mother of two young children--and her state of mind in the days before she left Mikkel, the more Louise begins to wonder whether Trine really meant to leave him. Or whether something much darker may have taken place.

As the local police begin to suspect that Mikkel may have had a hand in Trine's disappearance, Louise struggles to clear his name but is forced to confront some hard truths: Small towns always hide secrets. The past always comes back to haunt you. And lies are never harmless.

9) The Resting Place by Camilla Sten to be published on the 29th of March 2022. Sweden.

A spine-chilling, propulsive psychological suspense from international sensation Camilla Sten.

The medical term is prosopagnosia. The average person calls it face blindness—the inability to recognize a familiar person’s face, even the faces of those closest to you.

When Eleanor walked in on the scene of her capriciously cruel grandmother, Vivianne’s, murder, she came face to face with the killer—a maddening expression that means nothing to someone like her. With each passing day, her anxiety mounts. The dark feelings of having brushed by a killer, yet not know who could do this—or if they’d be back—overtakes both her dreams and her waking moments, thwarting her perception of reality.

Then a lawyer calls. Vivianne has left her a house—a looming estate tucked away in the Swedish woods. The place her grandfather died, suddenly. A place that has housed a dark past for over fifty years.

Eleanor. Her steadfast boyfriend, Sebastian. Her reckless aunt, Veronika. The lawyer. All will go to this house of secrets, looking for answers. But as they get closer to bringing the truth to light, they’ll wish they had never come to disturb what rests there.

A heart-thumping, relentless thriller that will shake you to your core, The Resting Place is an unforgettable novel of horror and suspense.

10) The Boreal Tattoo by Christoffer Petersen to be published on the 26th of March 2022. Greenland.

While convalescing in her hospital bed, Constable Petra Jensen is given a Polaroid photo of a traditional Inuit tattoo and encouraged to track down the artist who made it.

The Boreal Tattoo is the thirteenth in the Greenland Missing Persons series of novellas and novels set in the harsh, unpredictable Arctic, rich in tradition, myth and culture.

The Boreal Tattoo continues the adventures of Constable Petra ‘Piitalaat’ Jensen, ably assisted by interesting characters, together with a few familiar faces making cameo appearances in the series.

The Greenland Missing Persons stories are set prior to The Ice Star and Seven Graves, One Winter.

11) The American Artisan by Christoffer Petersen to be published on the 10th of March 2022. Greenland.

When ghosts from an old case haunt an American artist as he walks the streets of Nuuk, Constable David Maratse is recalled to Greenland’s capital to investigate.

The American Artisan is the twenty-third in a series of novellas to feature Constable David Maratse in Greenland. Each novella is set during Maratse’s career as a police constable, and features aspects of Greenlandic culture, tradition, and not least the stunning natural environment.

Constable David Maratse also features in the popular Greenland Crime series starting with Seven Graves, One Winter, and makes regular cameo appearances in the Greenland Missing Persons series.