English Translations of Scandinavian/Nordic Mysteries & Thrillers discussion

For the month of July 2022 we have seven books so far to read. we will add books as they become known to us. Good reading.

1) Swanfolk by Kristín Ómarsdóttir to be published on the 5th of July 2022. Iceland.

Like a modern Midsummer Night’s Dream, an ethereal and haunting novel about a young spy who enchanted by a species of half-swan, half-human creatures—an obsession that ultimately leads her to question her own existence—and sanity.

In the not-too-distant future, a young spy named Elísabet Eva finds herself mentally unraveling following an assignment in Paris. Everything in Elísabet’s life in the city—her friends, social engagements, and late nights—revolved around her work as a spy with the Special Unit. To regain her mental balance, Elísabet finds herself taking long solitary walks near the lake.

One day, she sees two strange beasts emerging from the water—a pair of seemingly mythical creatures, human woman above the waist, swan below. Curious, she follows them through tangles of thickets to a clearing . . . and into a strange new reality.

Elísabet’s walks become regular visits to these swan women. As she earns their trust, the creatures reveal the enigma of their secret existence and their desire to reproduce. Pulled further and further into the swanfolk’s monomaniacal (and often violent) quest, Elísabet finds her own mind growing increasingly untrustworthy. Ultimately, she is forced to reckon with both the consequences of her involvement with these unusual beings and her own past—and face a truth she’s carefully tried to evade.

2) The Final Nail by Stefan Ahnhem to be published on the 7th of July 2022. Sweden.

He has extorted. He has abused. He has raped. He has sacrificed souls as a means to reach the very top. In every way, he is a despicable man. His name is Kim Sleizner and he works as a police chief in Copenhagen.

Dunja Hougaard has gone underground to covertly investigate her former boss, Sleizner. For months, Dunja and her team have been gathering information. When a high-ranking man within the Danish intelligence service and an unknown woman are found dead at the bottom of a lake outside Copenhagen, the trap is finally ready to close. The only question is: whom will it catch? And meanwhile, on the other side of the strait in Helsingborg, the Swedish police Fabian Risk detective receives a message that changes everything.

Stefan Ahnhem is back with the sixth and final instalment in the internationally bestselling and award-winning Fabian Risk series.

3) A Grain of Truth by Christian Unge to be published on the 7th of July 2022. Sweden.

Stressed-out, sleep-deprived and pill-popping Dr Tekla Berg is as unusual a central character as you will find" Irish Independent

"Tekla is a terrific character" Literary Review

"Tekla Berg is a brilliant character" Susi Holliday

"A memorable protagonist" Imran Mahmood

"Tekla is a scalpel-sharp character" Jens Lapidus


A woman is found wandering the corridors of Nobel Hospital in Stockholm, accompanied by a young boy. She appears to be looking for a man who was involved in a car accident earlier that day.

Meanwhile, in one of the emergency rooms, Tekla Berg is fighting to save a patient who was seriously injured in the same incident. The resulting chaos goes beyond anything anyone could have predicted, leaving hospital staff, police and everyone else involved equally shocked and perplexed.

Hospital Director Monica Carlsson has stepped up her attempts to privatise her fiefdom with the launch of an exclusive patient hotel, a controversial liver transplant unit and the prestigious recruitment of star surgeon Klas Nyström. It soon becomes obvious that Klas has his own agenda and is working to undermine Tekla at every turn.

But Tekla is too distracted to meet this challenge head on: she has become obsessed with the mystery surrounding the woman and her young charge - for the boy's identity remains unknown and no trace of his past can be found.

Reviews for Hell and High Water

"A gripping crime novel . . . fast-moving and packed with convincing detail and memorable characters" Literary Review

"As gripping as it could be . . . An authentic and seriously exciting debut" I rish Independent

Translated from the Swedish by George Goulding and Sarah de Senarclens.

4) The Last Day of Old Magic: A Constable Petra Jensen Novella by Christoffer Petersen to be published on the 12th of July 2022. Greenland.

As Tuukula prepares for the longest sledge journey in the world, Petra distracts the shaman’s daughter with a cold case that can only be solved with old magic.

The Last Day of Old Magic is the fourteenth in the Greenland Missing Persons series of novellas and novels set in the harsh, unpredictable Arctic, rich in tradition, myth and culture.

The Last Day of Old Magic 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.

5) A System So Magnificent It Is Blinding  Amanda Svensson to be published on the 14th of July 2022. Sweden.

Are we free to create our own destinies or are we just part of a system beyond our control?

A joyful family saga about free will, forgiveness, and how we are all interconnected.

In October 1989, a set of triplets is born, and it is this moment their father chooses to reveal his affair. Pandemonium ensues.

Over two decades later, Sebastian is recruited to join a mysterious organisation, the London Institute of Cognitive Science, where he meets Laura Kadinsky, a patient whose inability to see the world in three dimensions is not the only thing about her that intrigues him. Meanwhile, Clara has travelled to Easter Island to join a doomsday cult, and the third triplet, Matilda, is in Sweden, trying to escape from the colour blue.

Then something happens that forces the triplets to reunite. Their mother calls with worrying news: their father has gone missing and she has something to tell them, a twenty-five-year secret that will change all their lives …

6) Night Shadows Eva Björg Ægisdóttir to be published on the 21st of July 2022. Iceland.

Icelandic detective Elma faces mortal danger as she investigates the death of a young man in a mysterious Akranes house fire, and a Dutch au pair’s perfect placement turns deadly … The breathtaking third instalment in the award-winning Forbidden Iceland series.

***WINNER of the CWA John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger***

‘Fans of Nordic Noir will love this’ Ann Cleeves

‘Elma is a fantastic heroine’ Sunday Times

‘Chilling and addictive, with a twist you won't see coming. I loved it!' Shari Lapena

‘Complex, gripping and moving’ The Times

_________________________

The small community of Akranes is devastated when a young man dies in a mysterious house fire, and when Detective Elma and her colleagues from West Iceland CID discover the fire was arson, they become embroiled in an increasingly perplexing case involving multiple suspects. What’s more, the dead man’s final online search raises fears that they could be investigating not one murder, but two.

A few months before the fire, a young Dutch woman takes a job as an au pair in Iceland, desperate to make a new life for herself after the death of her father. But the seemingly perfect family who employs her turns out to have problems of its own and she soon discovers she is running out of people to turn to.

As the police begin to home in on the truth, Elma, already struggling to come to terms with a life-changing event, finds herself in mortal danger as it becomes clear that someone has secrets they’ll do anything to hide…

7) Blood Ties: A Novel by Ruth Lillegraven to be published on the 26th of July 2022. Norway.

Betrayal, secrets, revenge, and murder: they’re in the blood in a provocative novel of psychological suspense by the award-winning, internationally bestselling author of Everything Is Mine.

As Norway’s newly appointed minister of justice, child-rights advocate Clara Lofthus has a chance to accomplish something meaningful on behalf of the most vulnerable members of society. It couldn’t be more personal. After her husband’s death, she is the sole caretaker of her twin sons, Andreas and Nikolai. She’s also still haunted by her own traumatic childhood—and the lengths to which she was willing to go to pursue her own brand of vigilante justice. How far? No one ever needs to know. And this is just one of Clara’s secrets.

Then one day, Clara comes home from work to make a terrifying discovery: her sons have been kidnapped. Clara’s search leads to her hometown in Western Norway, where she learns that her mother has been released from the mental hospital she has been living at for the past thirty years. Hot on Clara’s heels is a local reporter, who is every bit as relentless as she is. He’s determined to disrupt Clara’s life even further and will not rest until he exposes the truth about her past.

As the fate of her sons hangs in the balance, the demons of Clara’s past are flushed out of hiding, threatening to come home to roost.

8) The Girl in the Photo by Heidi Amsinck to be published on the 28th of July 2022. Denmark.

Not all little old ladies are so innocent …

When ninety-year-old Irene Valborg is found brutally murdered in an affluent suburb of Copenhagen, her diamond necklace missing, it looks like a burglary gone wrong. When two more victims are attacked, the police lament a rise in violence against the elderly, but who is the young girl in the photo found by DI Henrik Jungersen on the scenes of crime?

Impatient to claim her inheritance, Irene’s daughter hires former Dagbladet reporter Jensen and her teenage apprentice Gustav to find the necklace. Questioning his own sanity, while trying to fix his marriage, Henrik finds himself once more pitched in a quest for the truth against Jensen – the one woman in Copenhagen he is desperate to avoid.