English Translations of Scandinavian/Nordic Mysteries & Thrillers discussion

For the month of December 2020 we have 5 books to read, they are:

1) The Gold Digger by Liz Tolsma to be published 1 December 2020. U.S.A. and Norway.

Men Are Disappearing in LaPorte, Indiana

In 1907, shy but loyal Ingrid Storset travels from Norway to support her grieving sister, Belle Gunness, who owns a farm in LaPorte, Indiana. Well-to-do widow Belle, who has lost two husbands and several children, provides Ingrid with enough money to start a small business. But Ingrid is confused by the string of men Belle claims to be interviewing for her next husband. When Nils Lindherud comes to town looking for his missing brother, who said he was going to marry Belle, Ingrid has a sinking feeling her sister is up to no good.

2) Beyond the Ranges: Gritty Western stories inspired by Jack London, Elmore Leonard and Cormac McCarthy by Christoffer Petersen to be published 1 December 2020. Western U.S.A.

Each year when the snow thaws on Vulture Pass, riders from beyond the ranges enter the valley to loot what’s left of the settlers’ stores. Each and every year. But not this one.
Join retired cavalry Captain Constantine as he rallies his neighbours into a fighting force that might, with a lot of luck and bullets, push back the riders from beyond the ranges.

These twelve interconnected stories weave together a western narrative inspired by the works of Elmore Leonard and Cormac McCarthy with a heavy measure of Jack London. At times gritty and relentless, Petersen takes his knowledge of extreme environments and blends it with a cast of unforgettable characters just trying to make ends meet in a harsh world.

3) Winterkill by Ragnar Jónasson to be published 10 December 2020. Iceland.

When the body of a nineteen-year-old girl is found on the main street of Siglufjörður, Police Inspector Ari Thór battles a violent Icelandic storm in an increasingly dangerous hunt for her killer … The chilling, claustrophobic finale to the international bestselling Dark Iceland series.

Easter weekend is approaching, and snow is gently falling in Siglufjörður, the northernmost town in Iceland, as crowds of tourists arrive to visit the majestic ski slopes.

Ari Thór Arason is now a police inspector, but he’s separated from his girlfriend, who lives in Sweden with their three-year-old son. A family reunion is planned for the holiday, but a violent blizzard is threatening and there is an unsettling chill in the air.

Three days before Easter, a nineteen-year-old local girl falls to her death from the balcony of a house on the main street. A perplexing entry in her diary suggests that this may not be an accident, and when an old man in a local nursing home writes ‘She was murdered’ again and again on the wall of his room, there is every suggestion that something more sinister lies at the heart of her death…

As the extreme weather closes in, cutting the power and access to Siglufjörður, Ari Thór must piece together the puzzle to reveal a horrible truth … one that will leave no one unscathed.

Chilling, claustrophobic and disturbing, Winterkill marks the startling conclusion to the million-copy bestselling Dark Iceland series and cements Ragnar Jónasson as one of the most exciting authors in crime fiction.

4) Don't Wake Me by Martin Krüger to be published 17 December 2020. Norway.

She came to the island to escape what she did. But the island won’t let her forget.

It was a terrible, terrible accident. Jasmin Hansen knows she hit something. It must have been a deer—that’s what her husband keeps telling her. But Jasmin saw a man’s face, and the nightmares won’t stop.

Some time out at their holiday home on the remote island of Minsøy seems the ideal solution for Jasmin and her five-year-old son, Paul. But you can’t hide from your memories, and Jasmin is haunted at every turn. When mysterious messages begin to arrive at her isolated cottage, it becomes clear that she isn’t the only one who knows what happened that night. Somebody wants her to pay. And when Jasmin uncovers the island’s shocking long-held secret, she realises there isn’t a single person she and Paul can trust.

As the island closes in on her and the threats against her escalate, can Jasmin discover who knows the truth of what she did before it’s too late?

5) North Star Bay by Christoffer Petersen to be published 22 December 2020. Greenland.

In the darkest and bleakest of Greenland winters, retired Police Commissioner Petra Jensen risks everything on a personal journey to North Star Bay in search of answers to painful questions.

Following her dismissal from the police force, Petra enlists the help of a dubious ally and sails north on a journey of renewal that quickly twists into one of survival and revenge.

Petra must dig deep if she is to overcome everything that Greenland throws at her.

Set in Greenland’s future, North Star Bay continues an exciting thread teased at in the previous book Invisible Touch.

6) As always we will add books as the become available. Good Reading.

The Other Cipher by Heidi Eljarbo published 2nd December 2020. Norway.

In the captivating second book of the Soli Hansen Mysteries, two women—separated by more than three hundred years—are connected through their love of art.

1613. Fabiola Ruber has been wed to a man she does not know and must live in a country with a new language and different customs. The memories of a lost love in her hometown Malta haunt her, and she sets out to find an artist who can do her portrait and recapture the feelings she had when she once modelled for a renowned Italian master painter.

1944. Four years into World War II, art historian Soli Hansen works with the Norwegian resistance to locate significant artwork and safeguard the pieces from the Nazis. When she finds out the Germans are after a hidden baroque depiction of a seventeenth century woman, she must muster all her courage and skills to decipher encrypted codes and preserve the mysterious art before it’s too late.

Both women are determined to do what they can to bring healing and redemption to their otherwise ominous future. Through tangled, bewildering clues and an eye for detail, Soli’s bond to Fabiola grows closer by the day. She must find the missing painting before the enemy does.

Ranging from a privileged life in seventeenth century Antwerp to Oslo during the German occupation of the second world war, this dual timeline is a historical mystery thriller that will keep you guessing until the very end.

Jorn Lier Horst & Thomas Enger have a book out called Smoke Screen to be published 18 December 2020. Norway.

Oslo, New Year’s Eve. The annual firework celebration is rocked by an explosion, and the city is put on terrorist alert.

Police officer Alexander Blix and blogger Emma Ramm are on the scene, and when a severely injured survivor is pulled from the icy harbour, she is identified as the mother of two-year-old Patricia Semplass, who was kidnapped on her way home from kindergarten ten years earlier … and never found.

Blix and Ramm join forces to investigate the unsolved case, as public interest heightens, the terror threat is raised, and it becomes clear that Patricia’s disappearance is not all that it seems…

Chilly Winds by Brooks Yeager published 10th December 2020. Iceland, Greenland.

Taz Blackwell, former environmental negotiator and now a trouble-seeking drinker and romantic charmer, tries to find a new life and love against a backdrop of espionage, corporate plunderers, and devious diplomats.

Escaping a failed marriage, Taz moves to the island of Chincoteague on Virginia's Atlantic Coast, where he explores friendships with a cast of small-town misfits and romance with a beautiful but wary divorcee. Meanwhile, he fights a corporate land grab on the shore and a shady billion-dollar mining play in the international Arctic.

Why is a Chinese mining conglomerate stealing the land underneath a traditional black community on Virginia's Eastern Shore? Why is the Russian ambassador to Iceland trying to open southern Greenland to mining? Why does Taz interest the ambassador's beautiful mistress? The answers are in Chilly Winds, a tour de force that will appeal to mystery lovers, adventure addicts, and espionage fans everywhere.

"That Feeling You Get" by Aaron Michael Ricossa, who is a author and dual citizen of Denmark and the U.S.A., published 1st December 2020. Denmark. Found on Amazon not yet on Goodreads.

Luisa Stein may be a promising young investigative journalist, but this story she has accidentally walked into might just be the end of her relationship, her job or even her life. Sitting on a train to an unknown destination, with a strange man who has given her no name, Luisa wonders how she ended up in this situation. Was it the mystery of the invitation? Or was it the trance-like feeling that made every hair on her body stand on end when this man asked her to join him. Before she has a chance to figure it out, she is thrust into a world of action and mystery that she can’t seem to pull herself away from. Is this all for a story or is this exactly where Luisa was always meant to be?