English Translations of Scandinavian/Nordic Mysteries & Thrillers discussion

We have four new books to read this month and they are: 1) Her Father's Secret by Sara Blaedel to be published March 5, 2019. Denmark.

After suddenly inheriting a funeral home from her father--who she hadn't heard from in decades--Ilka Jensen has impulsively abandoned her quiet life in Denmark to visit the small town in rural Wisconsin where her father lived. There, she's devastated to discover her father's second family: a stepmother and two half sisters she never knew existed. And who aren't the least bit welcoming, despite Ilka's efforts to reach out.
Then a local woman is killed, seemingly the unfortunate victim of a home invasion turned violent. But when Ilka learns that the woman knew her father, it becomes increasingly clear that she may not have been a completely random victim after all.
The more Ilka digs into her father's past, the more deeply entangled she becomes in a family drama that has spanned decades and claimed more than one life--and she may be the next victim...

There are now two books involved with this title so you may have to read The Daughter to get what you have with The Undertaker's Daughter .

2) The Wolf and the Watchman by Niklas Natt och Dag to be published March 5, 2019. Sweden.

In this breathtakingly bold, intricately constructed novel set in 18th century Stockholm, a dying man searches among the city’s teeming streets, dark corners, and intriguing inhabitants to unmask a ruthless murderer—perfect for fans of Perfume and The Alienist.

It is 1793. Four years after the storming of the Bastille in France and more than a year after the death of King Gustav III of Sweden, paranoia and whispered conspiracies are Stockholm’s daily bread. A promise of violence crackles in the air as ordinary citizens feel increasingly vulnerable to the whims of those in power.

When Mickel Cardell, a crippled ex-solider and former night watchman, finds a mutilated body floating in the city’s malodorous lake, he feels compelled to give the unidentifiable man a proper burial. For Cecil Winge, a brilliant lawyer turned consulting detective to the Stockholm police, a body with no arms, legs, or eyes is a formidable puzzle and one last chance to set things right before he loses his battle to consumption. Together, Winge and Cardell scour Stockholm to discover the body’s identity, encountering the sordid underbelly of the city’s elite. Meanwhile, Kristofer Blix—the handsome son of a farmer—leaves rural life for the alluring charms of the capital and ambitions of becoming a doctor. His letters to his sister chronicle his wild good times and terrible misfortunes, which lead him down a treacherous path.

In another corner of the city, a young woman—Anna-Stina—is consigned to the workhouse after she upsets her parish priest. Her unlikely escape plan takes on new urgency when a sadistic guard marks her as his next victim.

Over the course of the novel, these extraordinary characters cross paths and collide in shocking and unforgettable ways. Niklas Natt och Dag paints a deliciously dark portrait of late 18th century Stockholm, and the frightful yet fascinating reality lurking behind the powdered and painted veneer of the era.

Here's my one paragraph review:

I think that Niklas Natt och Dag has accomplished a very rough story that encompasses a time when it's tough to let people know how hard it is to picture how desolate and rough the times are. I think he has accomplished this feat quiet well. He starts out with two boys finding a body in a lake and we meet Mickel Cardell, he's a retired soldier with only one arm, who they talk into getting this body out of the lake that's filled with the run off of several factories. We then meet Cecil Winge, who's dying from consumption but works with the police, he's interested in the body that Mickel Cardell found because it has no limbs. We have several other stories and meet several other characters such as Kristofer Blix, who was the one who made the body as it was, and we meet Anna Stina, who's key to the story and the whole plot. You must read this story, and you'll remember it because of it's ruthlessness of the characters. It seems to haunt me with its simplicity and I gave it 4.5 stars.

And here's Sandy's review:

In chaos theory, there is something called the butterfly effect. The idea is that one small action can greatly affect the outcome of a later, seemingly unrelated event. This novel is full of little moments that show how one person’s decision can permanently alter the lives of others.

The year is 1793 & Stockholm is a city on edge. Rebellion by lower classes in countries such as France have made the Swedish elite a tad nervous, especially after the murder of King Gustav III. This is the backdrop for a story of 4 people living separate lives until a single event causes their paths to cross. All it takes is the discovery of a mutilated body.

Mickel Cardell returned from the war with shattered nerves & one less arm. Now he’s a watchman….when he can be bothered to get up off his barstool. That’s where 2 youngsters find him one night with news of a floater in the lake. But the body Mickel “rescues” is not exactly what he expected. In fact, it’s not even really a body. Just a torso….no arms, no legs.

Cecil Winge is a lawyer who works as a consultant with the Swedish police. He’s an intelligent & private man who has fought for progressive changes to the legal system. He’s also dying from consumption. So it’s no wonder he feels a sense of urgency about his latest case….to give a name to the unidentified torso & find a killer.

Kristofer Blix is a handsome farm boy who heads to Stockholm with dreams of becoming a doctor. He soon realizes how unprepared he is for life in the big city but could never have imagined where it will lead.

Anna-Stina’s young life has been full of poverty & struggle. And it’s about to get worse. If she wants something better she’ll have to be brave, smart & resourceful. Thankfully, she has those things in spades.

At its heart this is an engrossing murder investigation but as we meet & get to know the 4 MC’s, it becomes so much more. Their personal stories add depth & guarantee you become as invested in them as you are in solving the mystery surrounding the torso. The historical setting, political situation, class system & living conditions are so well rendered that sometimes it feels all too real.

I finished this a while ago & have been struggling to write a review that does it justice. Even the rating was a challenge. If I look at it purely as entertainment, I can’t say I enjoyed every part. There are passages that are difficult, even revolting to read. But here’s the thing. Life for many people at that time WAS difficult & revolting to our modern sensibilities. It was about survival. And the reason you feel these emotions so keenly is all down to the author’s skills as a story teller.

He has an extraordinary ability to write prose that completely envelops you. You feel everything as you follow these characters. Fear, anger, frustration, grief & scattered glimmers of hope. All your senses are engaged. Yes, there are scenes that made me want to look away but I couldn’t. I cared deeply for these people & carried the book with me to read every chance I got.

Soooo…by now you probably figured out this will not be found under “Cozies”. Sometimes when I’m asked about my last couple of reads, I struggle to remember names & plot details. This is a visceral & haunting story that has stayed with me. The ability to transport a reader to another time & place is a gift & I look forward to the author’s next book. But maybe I’ll have a wee beverage before cracking the cover 🍷

3) The Island by Ragnar Jónasson will be published March 7, 2019. Iceland.

Elliðaey is an isolated island off the coast of Iceland. It is has a beautiful, unforgiving terrain and is an easy place to vanish.

The Island is the second thrilling book in Ragnar Jonasson's Hidden Iceland trilogy. This time Hulda is at the peak of her career and is sent to investigate what happened on Elliðaey after a group of friends visited but one failed to return.

Could this have links to the disappearance of a couple ten years previously out on the Westfjords? Is there a killer stalking these barren outposts?

Written with Ragnar's haunting and suspenseful prose The Island follows Hulda's journey to uncover the island's secrets and find the truth hidden in its darkest shadows.

4) The Island Affair: Can one summer mend a broken heart? by Helena Halme will be published March 19, 2019. Finland.

Can one summer mend a broken heart?
After the tragic loss of their 17-year-old son, journalist Alicia and surgeon Liam struggle to keep their marriage afloat. During their usual holiday to Åland, the Nordic islands where Alicia grew up, the rift between the couple deepens.

Enter tall, blonde Patrick, with the most piercing blue eyes Alicia has ever seen. When Patrick confides in Alicia about the near loss of his daughter and the breakdown of his marriage, Alicia is surprised to feel an affinity with the Swedish reporter. He’s the only person who understands Alicia.

But secrets held by people close to Alicia give her life another surprising turn and she finds there is a reason to live – and love – again.

As always we will add any book published during the month as soon as it is brought to our attention. Good Reading.

The December books keep coming that I haven't seen such as For the Missing by Lina Bengtsdotter published December 13, 2018. Sweden.

When a teenage girl goes missing from a small town, the local police start to buckle under the pressure.

Enter Charlie Lager, the brilliant but conflicted Detective Inspector sent from Stockholm to solve the mystery of Annabelle's disappearance.

Her superiors don't know that Charlie grew up in this very town - and she's determined to keep it that way. But as she gets closer to the truth, cracks begin to form in her own lies.

Can Charlie find Annabelle before her darkest secrets are brought to light? FOR THE MISSING, time is running out...

We have a Dutch author in the Storytellers by Bjørn Larssen to be published March 26, 2019. Iceland.

In March 1920 Icelandic days are short and cold, but the nights are long. For most, on those nights, funny, sad, and dramatic stories are told around the fire. But there is nothing dramatic about Gunnar, a hermit blacksmith who barely manages to make ends meet. He knows nobody will remember him – they already don’t. All he wants is peace, the company of his animals, and a steady supply of his medication. Sometimes he wonders what it would feel like to have a story of his own. He’s about to find out.

Sigurd – a man with a plan, a broken ankle, and shocking amounts of money – won’t talk about himself, but is happy to tell a story that just might get Gunnar killed. The blacksmith's other “friends” are just as eager to write him into stories of their own – from Brynhildur who wants to fix Gunnar, then marry him, his doctor who is on the precipice of calling for an intervention, The Conservative Women of Iceland who want to rehabilitate Gunnar’s “heathen ways” – even the goddamn elf has plans for the blacksmith.

As his defenses begin to crumble, Gunnar decides that perhaps his life is due for a change – on his own terms. But can he avoid the endings others have in mind for him, and forge his own?

The author is an ex-blacksmith, lover of all things Icelandic, physically located in Amsterdam, mentally living in a log cabin near Akureyri. He has published stories and essays in Polish and American magazines, both online and in print. This is his first novel.

In Greenland we have another short story from Christoffer Petersen in "Qivittoq" to be published March 31, 2019. Greenland.

When a pattern for an East Greenlandic national costume is stolen Constable David Maratse must find the thief before they are expelled from the community.
Qivittoq is the sixth 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.

The series includes:

Katabatic
Container
Tupilaq
The Last Flight
The Heart that was a Wild Garden
Qivittoq
You can read more about David Maratse in The Greenland Trilogy of action thrillers, starting with The Ice Star, and in his own series of Greenland Crime novels, starting with Seven Graves, One Winter.

Seven Graves, One Winter is the first full novel featuring Greenlandic Police Constable David Maratse.

The Greenland Crime series includes:

Seven Graves, One Winter
Blood Floe
We Shall Be Monsters

An Old Debt by Doriana Cantoni will be published March 27, 2019. Denmark.

It's the beginning of 1972 in a Denmark beaten by the icy winds of the northern winter and upset by the sudden death of King Frederik IX. In the little town of Torslunde, a few kilometers from the capital, the brutal murder of a Lutheran minister reopens the doors to a past that seemed hidden in the folds of historical memory. Inspector Petersen, sent from Copenhagen, will have to hunt down a murderer with a thousand faces, revealing a network of complicity that makes everyone a suspect.


DORIANA CANTONI was born in Parma (Italy) in 1969. She graduated in Philosophy in 1993 from the University of Bologna. After teaching for a few years in private schools, she dedicated herself to other activities and started to write the stories that later became her books. Passionate about martial arts that she practiced for a long time, she is fascinated by the concept of non-linear time. She is the author of several novels, short stories and a book of collected poems.

Swedish Drop: A PANDORA File by Michael D. Wright will be published March 9, 2019. Sweden.

The clock is ticking…

Black-ops agent John Seal is sent to Stockholm on a simple Secret PANDORA mission in the midst of winter to intercept a scheduled dead drop between a Swedish Security Service agent by impersonating a local CIA operative.

But the brutal murder of the SSS agent only seconds away from grabbing the package, sends John racing through the icy alleyways and gritty streets forcing him to take cover.

During an epic blizzard, John is faced with uncertain loyalties and conflicting agendas as he struggles to follow new orders — recover the highly sensitive contents of the package and assassinate the Swedish Minister of Justice before escaping the country.

He has forty-eight hours…

If you like gripping tension complete with plot twists and intrigue, you’ll love this compact fast-paced spy-thriller

We have Distorted Minds by Gunilla Fagerholm published on March 6, 2019. Sweden.

On a hot summer day in 1973, 19-year old Swedish-American girl Jenny, living in Mora, Minnesota, loses her family in a spooky hit-and-run car accident. In order to come to terms with her loss, she goes to sea. But she soon, however, changes her mind. She decides to look for her roots in Mora in Dalarna, Sweden, her Granddad Wally´s native village.
On her way to Mora, Jenny gets attacked and loses her memory. Who is she? And from where does she come? Young police assistant Sven finds Jenny unconscious in the forest. The two youngsters soon form a deep friendship, which later develops into love.
Sven learns that his upbringing is based on a lie. His Mum is not at all the one he had believed. Will Sven find his real parents?
And who killed Jenny´s father and brother?
Another woman, who twenty years earlier had lived with the Amish people, is searching for her family. Will she find them?
The story is tightening. Friends and neighbours from both Australia, USA and Sweden meet in Swedish Mora, where they all get a horrible explanation.
But so much is still left before Jenny can come to peace in her distorted mind. Will she succeed?

Her first novel of Sweden, she moved to the U.S.A. with her husband and children, Stina Jackson the book is called The Silver Road published 9 March 2019. Sweden.

Three years ago, Lelle's daughter went missing in a remote part of Northern Sweden. Lelle has spent the intervening summers driving the Silver Road under the midnight sun, frantically searching for his lost daughter, for himself and for redemption.

Meanwhile, seventeen-year-old Meja arrives in town hoping for a fresh start. She is the same age as Lelle's daughter was - a girl on the brink of adulthood. But for Meja, there are dangers to be found in this isolated place.

As autumn's darkness slowly creeps in, Lelle and Meja's lives are intertwined in ways, both haunting and tragic, that they could never have imagined.

This compelling and haunting read is perfect for fans of Daniel Woodrell’s Winter’s Bone.

From Amazon we have a book called From the Veins of Gods by James Ecendance which was published 18 March 2019. Norway.

At the cabin, summers can last five months. A group of friends are gathered, once again, but this time they know it will be their last summer. Arwen is about to turn forty, the age at which work begins for The Norwegian Autonomous State, where jobs are allocated by the Mainnet computer network; for many meaning a short life of hard labour and complete separation from family.

He has one night to escape with his wife and son, before he loses them forever. But Arwen is torn between the feelings of duty, his own torment of losing a father early and being the father he wants to be for his son, within an all-controlling regime that has a devastating secret.

Susumu Okabe has a book called "An Old Woman Collecting Bilberry - A Killer" published 20 March 2019. Norway. On Amazon but not Goodreads yet.

In 1979, 29-year-old Sakaimachi (Ph.D.) was studying at the Institute of the P-Hospital in Philadelphia, PA, as a research fellow. Back in Japan, he was a research associate at the T-University in Tokyo and his future was expected. While at the P-Hospital, he became acquainted with 31-year-old Tony Messina, an instructor at a Philadelphia driving school. Actually, Tony was the son of the head of Philadelphia crime family, Salvatore Messina. In 1981, Sakaimachi moved to Rochester (New York) to improve his academic prospects at the R-University with his family. His wife's traffic accident with outlaws resulted in the death of his son and a large burn of this wife. When Sakaimachi killed these outlaws in revenge, his career as a scholar ended. Eventually, Sakaimachi became a professional killer for Tony. His favorite weapon was boomerang. In 1982, Jack Warren, a lawyer in Rochester, run away with $ 300,000 of Tony. In 1998, Tony had finally discovered the Warren’s hideout in Trondheim, Norway, by the provision of the Houston’ s friend. Tony dispatched his best assassin Sakaimachi to Norway to deal with Warren quickly and efficiently.

Time's Tide by Adrian Harvey was published 14 March 2019. Iceland.

"On a morning like this, it was hard to recall the dark, deep days of winter, the ice and wind and hunger; the months when inaction and confinement, the empty waiting between scant meals, had gnawed through the soul as much as the stomach."

A father and son struggle to overcome the distance between them. Each is drawn irresistibly to an unforgiving landscape, one that has been the scene of tragedy and loss. The son's return to the northern shore he abandoned as a young man promises the chance to heal the rift. But is it too late?

�rni left his remote corner of Iceland as soon as he could, seeking opportunities beyond winter and fishing. Married to an English woman, he builds a life as a successful scientist but can never quite escape the pull of the West Fjords and bleak landscape of his birth, nor shake the guilt he feels towards his distant father. When Eir�kur goes missing, he sets off to find him on a windswept spit of land lost in an angry ocean.

Time's Tide is a compelling and beautifully written story of loss, belonging and the silence between fathers and sons.