English Translations of Scandinavian/Nordic Mysteries & Thrillers discussion

For the month of March 2021 we have six books to choose from, they are:

1) Vestmen's Gale by David McCaleb published 1st March 2021. U.S.A.

National bestselling author David McCaleb delivers a thriller like none other, opening our eyes to a realm ever present, but thinly veiled.

A World Not His Own…
Michael is suddenly drawn back in time by the spirit of his dead sister to the age when Vikings ventured to North America. He finds himself in the body of a Norseman and a member of a raiding party tasked with rescuing their chieftain’s kidnapped daughter. He soon discovers a chilling link between her and his own world. In his journey back to the present, he battles warring natives, shapeshifting demons, and the insecurities of his past.

A World Torn Apart…
Kiona, the daughter of a powerful Mi’kmaq shaman, struggles against her deceitful mother whose actions threaten the peace between her tribe, their Abenaki neighbors, and the newly arrived Vikings. Will she choose to remain loyal to her tribe, or instead to help Michael free his Viking sister?

Vestmen’s Gale is a story of sacrifice, redemption, and purpose.

2) Arctic Rising: A Constable Maratse Stand Alone novella by Christoffer Petersen to be published 6th March 2021. Greenland.

Identified as a High-Value Target, renegade Constable David Maratse leads a small band of guerrillas, from one mountain radio station to another, in a desperate battle for the airwaves and the hearts and minds of the Greenlandic people.

Arctic Rising continues the stand-alone speculative storyline begun in Arctic State, set in Greenland in the near future.

Arctic Rising is the third book in the Guerrilla Greenland series of novellas.

3) Everything Is Mine by Ruth Lillegraven to be published 9th March 2021. Norway.

Family secrets, revenge, and righteous fury collide in an international bestselling novel of psychological suspense and intrigue.

Clara and Henrik are married and living in a beautiful inherited villa in Oslo. She is a single-mindedly ambitious child-rights activist at the Ministry of Justice. Having grown up in rural Western Norway, she is also an Oslo outsider. Henrik is a doctor from a well-to-do Oslo family. Though their marriage is under serious strain, they share a devotion to their twin sons and their work. Outwardly, they’re a successful couple both dedicated to saving lives.

Then a Pakistani Norwegian child is admitted to Henrik’s hospital and dies in his care. The boy had clearly been the victim of child abuse. Soon after, a related murder rocks the city. It won’t be the last. The events unearth years of trauma, secrets, and buried resentments at the heart of Clara and Henrik’s fragile marriage.

Little by little, in the wake of these shattering crimes, the veneer of normalcy begins to fall away. But even then, nothing is as it appears.

4) Odin's Child by Siri Pettersen to be published 23rd March 2021. Norway.

An epic fantasy trilogy from Norway about thousand-year-old secrets, forbidden romance, and what happens to those who make a deal with the devil comes at last to the United States!

15-year-old Hirka has always been an outsider in the world of Ym: she’s the only person without a tail, and the only one unable to access the Might, a current of power that runs through the earth.

Her differences become more and more of a concern as the date approaches for the Rite—the ceremony where everyone is to be blessed by the all-knowing Seer and the Council of powerful families who rule in His name. With only a few weeks until the Rite, Hirka discovers the shocking secret behind why she is tailless and Mightless: she is not from this world. As an infant, she was brought through an ancient stone circle known as a Raven Ring, and as long as she’s in Ym, the passageway between worlds remains open inviting terrifying creatures called the blind to follow.

No one can know the truth of Hirka’s identity, especially
not Rime, her childhood friend who just might become something more. But is Rime is hiding secrets of his own?

The first in a trilogy, Odin's Child is a thrilling modern fantasy epic.

5) The Lost Village by Camilla Sten to be published 23rd March 2021. Sweden.

The Blair Witch Project meets Midsommar in this brilliantly disturbing thriller from Camilla Sten, an electrifying new voice in suspense.

Documentary filmmaker Alice Lindstedt has been obsessed with the vanishing residents of the old mining town, dubbed “The Lost Village,” since she was a little girl. In 1959, her grandmother’s entire family disappeared in this mysterious tragedy, and ever since, the unanswered questions surrounding the only two people who were left—a woman stoned to death in the town center and an abandoned newborn—have plagued her. She’s gathered a small crew of friends in the remote village to make a film about what really happened.

But there will be no turning back.

Not long after they’ve set up camp, mysterious things begin to happen. Equipment is destroyed. People go missing. As doubt breeds fear and their very minds begin to crack, one thing becomes startlingly clear to Alice:

They are not alone.

They’re looking for the truth…
But what if it finds them first?

6) My Friend Natalia by Laura Lindstedt to be published 23rd March 2021. Finland.

Award-winning author Laura Lindstedt makes her Anais Nin–like US debut with this mesmerizing tale of one woman’s potent affliction: Natalia cannot stop thinking about sex. Narrated by her unnamed, ungendered therapist, who leaps at the chance to employ their most experimental methods, My Friend Natalia offers a gripping examination of the power dynamics always present but rarely ever spoken about in therapy. “Something flared within me,” the therapist notes. “And it wasn’t exclusively sympathy.?.?.?.?It was more like a sudden experience of harmony, wholly inappropriate given the circumstances..


By combining philosophy and literature, repressed childhood memories and explicitly unrepressed erotic experiences, their sessions quickly shed all inhibitions. As tension percolates, the therapist can’t shake the question: What does Natalia really want? In prose charged with sharp banter and double entendres, My Friend Natalia takes a deconstructive approach to the self-help narratives of our times and announces Laura Lindstedt as a rare and unflinching literary talent.

7. As always we will add books as they become known to us. Good reading.

8. Looking After Luui by Christoffer Petersen to be published 9th March 2021, Greenland.

When Tuukula is called to a meeting with social services in Ilulissat, Petra agrees to look after Luui for a few days, only to discover she might just have underestimated the shaman's daughter... again!

Looking After Luui is a light, quick read set shortly after the events in the Greenland Missing Persons novella: The Shaman's Daughter.

Looking After Luui is number 6.5 in the Greenland Missing Persons series.

This Land is No Stranger by Sarah Hollister & Gil Reavill published 11th March 2021. Sweden.

A Nordic Thriller

With a career that is spiraling out of control and a nasty drug habit that has taken her to rock bottom, NYC detective Veronika Brand is looking for a way out. When a call from Sweden interrupts her personal chaos, the foreign tongue of her distant Swedish relatives pulls her across the Atlantic with the lure of adventure and escape. But what she finds is far from the idyllic picture her grandmother painted. Instead of long languid summers basking in the midnight sun, she unearths secrets long since buried in the frozen ground.

In Krister Hammar, a local Sami land rights lawyer, she thinks she has found a kindred spirit. But when they stumble upon a brutal murder scene in a manor house owned by the rivals of her family, she starts questioning his truth. She finds herself being moved like a chess piece between the desolate region of Härjedalen in the north and the steely-cold streets of Stockholm, scrambling to find the links between her family history, a trail of missing Roma girls, and a series of vicious murders. In unfamiliar territory on the wrong side of the law, Veronika has her sights set only on the beast that preys on the wicked. Will she be able to see past the lure of the northern lights to the dark secrets that threaten to destroy her?

Newest on the Nordic Noir scene is the thriller This Land is No Stranger, following the tradition of Hennik Mankell, Jo Nesbo, and Sjöwall & Wahlöö, through exploring the societal issues of the Nordics through the lens of suspense fiction.

The female protagonist, Veronika Brand, is an American detective visiting Sweden for family reasons, only to see things spiral out of control with the discovery of a dead body.

This murder mystery gives the reader everything they expect from a Scanoir classic, including gloomy weather, an old Saab, and quirky Scandinavian habits.

The Banshee Palace by Christoffer Petersen to be published 31st March 2021. Greenland.

When a young woman is found alone in the mountains, Constable Petra Jensen uncovers evidence to suggest she is lucky to be alive. Encouraged by the commissioner, Petra investigates, following a dark path to a remote cabin known as the Banshee Palace.