Scandinavian Crime Fiction

When perpetual bachelor Gunder Jomann goes to India for two weeks and comes home married, the town of Elvestad is stunned. On the day the Indian bride is supposed to arrive, the battered body of a woman is found in a meadow on the outskirts of town. None of the "good people of Elvestad" can believe that anyone among them would be capable of such a brutal murder. But in his quiet, formal way, Inspector Konrad Sejer understands that good people can commit atrocious deeds, and that no one is altogether innocent.

When a woman's body turns up in a lake - a bullet to the back of her head - Violent Crime Unit commander Maria Kallio, freshly back from maternity leave, is fast to get on the case. The victim is ID'd as Annukka Hackman, wife of a prominent publisher and author of an upcoming unauthorized tell-all book on Sasha Smeds, Finland's celebrated racing rally driver. Almost as soon as the inquiry starts, it goes off the rails, as those connected to Annukka - and to Smeds - seem to have more secrets than they have alibis.

After completing a dangerous mission training police officers in war-torn Afghanistan, Detective Maria Kallio returns to Finland as the head of a new special crimes unit. But what awaits her in her home country is her most challenging and unsettling case yet. Three immigrant Muslim girls, all members of the same social club, have gone missing under mysterious circumstances. When the body of a fourth girl is found in the snow, strangled with her own headscarf, the investigation takes on a grim new urgency.

El verano llega a su fin y la escritora Erica Falck vuelve al trabajo tras la baja de maternidad. Ahora le toca a su compañero, el comisario Patrik Hedström, tomarse un tiempo libre para ocuparse de la pequeña Maja. Pero el crimen no descansa nunca, ni siquiera en la tranquila ciudad de Fjällbacka, y cuando dos adolescentes descubren el cadáver de Erik Frankel, Patrik compaginará el cuidado de su hija con su interés por el asesinato de este historiador especializado en la Segunda Guerra Mundial.

A woman is found murdered after an Internet date. The marks left on her body show the police that they are dealing with a particularly vicious killer. Under pressure from the media to find the murderer, the force know there's only one man for the job. But Harry Hole is reluctant to return to the place that almost took everything from him. Until he starts to suspect a connection between this killing and his one failed case.

When a six-year-old girl is found dead, hanging from a tree, the only clue the Oslo Police have to work with is an airline tag around her neck. It reads, 'I'm travelling alone'. Holger Munch, veteran police investigator, is immediately charged with reassembling his homicide unit. But to complete the team, he must convince his erstwhile partner, Mia Krüger - a brilliant but troubled investigator - to return from the solitary island where she has retreated with plans to take her own life.

Dead women should not show up in photos fourteen years beyond the grave. But if anyone is likely to recognize Claire Lidman, it's her husband, Samuel. He brings the photo to Hans Rekke and Micaela Vargas. Their initial skepticism gives way to cautious belief—but where will this case lead them? Meanwhile, Rekke's daughter, Julia, has a new boyfriend she's determined to keep secret. When word gets out, Micaela's world collapses around her, and Rekke is forced to confront a nemesis from his youth.

Kim Wall was a thirty-year-old Swedish freelance journalist with a rising career. Then, in the summer of 2017, she followed a story that led to an eccentric inventor in Copenhagen. Instead of writing the next days headline, she'd become one. As the bizarre events of Kim's murder unfolded, the world watched in shocked disbelief. For Kim's distraught parents, Ingrid and Joachim, it was a devastating personal struggle. In the ensuing months, day by grueling day, they had to come to terms with their loss, process the global media attention, and endure the investigation and trial.

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Buried, the fifth installment of the Department Q series by Jussi Adler-Olsen, read by Steven Pacey. More than three years ago, a civil servant vanished after returning from a work trip to Africa. Though he is missing and presumed dead, the man's family still want answers. It is one of the many unsolved crimes left for Department Q, Denmark's cold-case unit headed up by Detective Carl Morck.

It seemed like an open-and-shut case. But they couldn’t have been more wrong. When a 25-year-old woman is found dead in Stockholm, detective Vanessa Frank knows that there is more to the case than meets the eye. And when Vanessa finds herself on the trail of a dangerous internet community who call themselves "incels", her world starts to unravel. These ‘involuntarily celibate’ men have fostered hatred towards the women who turn them down, and now women are turning up dead.

The police urgently need Harry Hole. A killer is stalking Oslo’s streets. Police officers are being slain at the scenes of crimes they once investigated, but failed to solve. The murders are brutal, the media reaction hysterical. But this time, Harry can’t help anyone. For years, detective Harry Hole has been at the centre of every major criminal investigation in Oslo. His dedication to his job and his brilliant insights have saved the lives of countless people. But now, with those he loves most facing terrible danger, Harry can’t protect anyone. Least of all himself.

An unbearably tense novel of revenge, murder, bereavement and the destructive force of passion. The single-mother families of the isolated community under the shadow of the Pyderhorn, Bergen's greatest mountain, are being terrorised by a teenage gang. But teenage violence is nothing compared to what awaits detective Varg Veum when he gets to know the blue-eyed Wenche Andersen.

A grievously mutilated young woman arrives at the hospital in Espoo, Finland - only to vanish without a trace. Though the victim refused to identify herself, Violent Crimes Unit Commander Maria Kallio suspects she's connected to the city's sex-worker underworld. The next day her suspicions grow when celebrity call girl Lulu Nightingale is murdered during a live television broadcast. The victim's clients included some of the top names in Finnish society, but the list of suspects is longer: her infatuated bodyguard, a suicidal TV producer, and a talk-show host with political aspirations.

Nina Borg, a Red Cross nurse, wife, and mother of two, is a compulsive do-gooder who can’t say no when someone asks for help—even when she knows better. When her estranged friend Karin leaves her a key to a public locker in the Copenhagen train station, Nina gets suckered into her most dangerous project yet.

Roger Brown has it all. He's the country's most successful headhunter. He has a beautiful wife and a magnificent house. And to maintain this lifestyle, he's also a highly accomplished art thief. At a gallery opening, his wife introduces him to Clas Greve. Not only is Greve the perfect candidate for a position with one of Roger's high-profile clients, he is also in possession of 'The Calydonian Boar Hunt' by Rubens, one of the most sought-after paintings in the world.

When a steel industry executive is found dead in a burning BMW, the death is quickly dismissed as a tragic accident. After another nearly identical accident occurs, criminal inspector Eva Nyman receives a letter that reveals details of an upcoming, and much more vicious, attack, leading her to believe that these are a deliberate series of murders, possibly even a case of climate terrorism. In the letter, Eva recognizes a phrase that was often used by her disgraced former boss, Lukas Frisell, who went off the grid after botching a kidnapping investigation.

He calls himself Ulf—as good a name as any, he thinks—and the only thing he’s looking for is a place where he won’t be found by Oslo’s most notorious drug lord: the Fisherman. He was once the Fisherman’s fixer, but after betraying him, Ulf is now the one his former boss needs fixed—which may not be a problem for a man whose criminal reach is boundless. When Ulf gets off the bus in Kåsund, on Norway’s far northeastern border, he sees a “flat, monotonous, bleak landscape . . . the perfect hiding place. Hopefully.”

Former cop Emma Tapper and her lawyer boss Angela Köhler are defending shipping boss Anita Spendel, charged with murdering her billionaire husband. Anita insists Martin Spendel is still alive, but his car is soaked in his blood. Emma must clear Anita’s name by finding the missing man—dead or alive… Meanwhile, on a luxury yacht off the coast of Ibiza, Bianca Aguilera is relaxing in the sun when a drone delivers an unexpected parcel. The contents: chilling evidence that someone close to her is dead. Horror quickly turns to realisation.

Noora Nieminen was destined to become a world champion. But when the sixteen-year-old skating sensation is found slain with her own skates, her promising career is unexpectedly cut short. Detective Maria Kallio is seven months pregnant, but that isn't going to stop her from putting everything she has into solving the murder. With a promotion on the line and her arrogant adversary, Pertti Ström, vying for the new job, Maria is determined to make an arrest.

It begins with a nursery rhyme. Nineteen minutes later you die.... The sixth gripping thriller in Lars Kepler’s best-selling series featuring Joona Linna. Perfect for fans of Stieg Larsson and Jo Nesbo. There’s a face at the window. A stranger wearing a mask stands in the shadow of a garden. He’s watching his first victim through the window. He will kill him slowly, make it last - play him a nursery rhyme - make him pay.