Scandinavian Fiction

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.

Der Alarm kommt in der Nacht. Auf einem Stockholmer Campingplatz wurden Einbrecher gesichtet. Vor Ort bietet sich der Polizei in einem Wohnwagen dann ein grauenvoller Anblick. Alles ist in Blut getränkt, der Boden, die Wände, alles. Hier wurde offenbar ein Mensch zerstückelt. Und da ist noch jemand, ein junger Mann im Tiefschlaf, dessen Kopf auf einem abgehackten Arm ruht. Wie sich herausstellt, ist es der Sohn eines berühmten Schriftstellers, der an Somnambulismus leidet. Wegen seiner Krankheit kann er Täter oder Zeuge des Gemetzels sein.

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.”

Tariq Khan is a Pakistani born and raised in Norway. An outsider in his own country - adrift between two worlds divided by class, race, and culture - he’s always been searching for home. Alongside a flock of other streetwise young men, each looking for direction and each easily susceptible, Tariq finds his cause in the Muslim revival. Idealistic, driven by faith, and empowered with purpose, he’s drawn to radical Islam - his last resort for achieving a sense of belonging. It’s only when he enlists in the war against Assad that Tariq’s eyes are truly opened.

La joven pareja formada por la escritora Erica y el detective Patrik disfrutan de unas merecidas vacaciones en la pequeña población costera de Fjällbacka. Erica está embarazada de ocho meses y el calor sofocante del verano vuelve especialmente difícil este último mes de gestación. La última cosa que necesita la joven pareja es un nuevo caso de asesinatos, pero el malhumorado comisario Mellberg le comunica a Patrik que un niño ha encontrado el cadáver de una mujer mientras jugaba.

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.

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.

Asle is an aging painter and widower who lives alone on the west coast of Norway. His only friends are his neighbor, Åsleik, a traditional fisherman-farmer, and Beyer, a gallerist who lives in the city. There, in Bjørgvin, lives another Asle, also a painter but lonely and consumed by alcohol. Asle and Asle are doppelgängers-two versions of the same person, two versions of the same life. Written in melodious and hypnotic "slow prose,"

The Völsunga saga is a legendary saga, a late 13th-century poetic rendition in Old Norse of the origin and decline of the Völsung clan (including the story of Sigurd and Brynhild and the destruction of the Burgundians). It is one of the most famous legendary sagas and an example of a "heroic saga" that deals with Germanic heroic legend. The saga covers topics including the quarrel between Sigi and Skaði, a huge family tree of great kings and powerful conquerors and the quest led by Sigmund and Sinfjǫtli to save princess Signý from the evil king Siggeir.

In this crime drama, detective Varg Veum's adventures take him into the world of privileged teenage girls who have been drawn into drugs and prostitution. The situation worsens when the local judge is found dead in a luxury hotel, clad only in women's lingerie. Called in by anxious parents to look for a missing daughter and explain the judge's death, Varg is led deep into Bergen's criminal underworld.

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of The Darkness by Ragnar Jonasson. A young woman, an asylum seeker from Russia, is found murdered on the seaweed-covered rocks of the Vatnsleysuströnd in Iceland. Detective Inspector Hulda Hermannsdottir of the Reykjavik Police is called to investigate this - the final case in her career before she is forced into retirement. When Hulda starts to ask questions, it isn't long before she realises that no-one can be trusted and that no-one is telling the whole truth.

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.

A man is found murdered in his Reykjavik flat. There are no obvious clues apart from a cryptic note left on the body and a photograph of a young girl's grave. Delving into the dead man's life Detective Erlendur discovers that 40 years ago he was accused of an appalling crime, but never convicted. Had his past come back to haunt him? As Erlendur struggles to build a relationship with his unhappy daughter, his investigation takes him to Iceland's Genetic Research Centre, where he uncovers disturbing secrets that are even darker than the murder of an old man.

Seven stories of passion and love separated by centuries but mysteriously intertwined - this is a tale of horror and beauty, tenderness and sacrifice. An archaeologist who unearths a mysterious artifact, an airman who finds himself far from home, a painter, a ghost, a vampire, and a Viking: the seven stories in this compelling novel all take place on the remote Scandinavian island of Blessed where a curiously powerful plant that resembles a dragon grows. What binds these stories together? What secrets lurk beneath the surface of this idyllic countryside?

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.

Mientras una ola de calor azota Estocolmo, una serie de mujeres son halladas brutalmente asesinadas, y la brigada de investigación criminal se encuentra en un callejón sin salida. Los cuerpos llevan la firma de Edward Hinde, un asesino en serie encarcelado hace 15 años, gracias al psicólogo Sebastian Bergman.

Jon Fosse said farewell to theory early in his career, choosing poetry, fiction, and drama as his mediums of choice. Here, however, in a selection from his two books of essays, we see just how incisive a critic and memoirist he can be. Not only including a generous portion of Fosse's writing on literature and theater—including the irresistible "Thomas Bernhard and His Grandfather"—this collection also includes such personal essays such as "My Dear New Norwegian," "Old Houses," and "He Who Didn't Want to Become a Teacher."

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.

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.

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.