English Translations of Scandinavian/Nordic Mysteries & Thrillers discussion

The month of November 2021 we will have 5 books so far to choose from (read as many or one), they are:

1) Lean Your Loneliness Slowly Against Mine by Klara Hveberg to be published the 2nd of November 2021. Norway.

A remarkable and heartbreaking debut novel with the lyrical beauty and emotional resonance of By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept and the thematic complexity of Asymmetry, that combines fractal mathematics and classical music to explore the infinitely complex patterns of love and the thin border between great passion and great loneliness.

Rakel has always been more comfortable with numbers than with people. A gifted woman with a rare talent for math, she has never mastered the art of making friends. At nineteen, she moves to Oslo to attend university. There she meets Jakob, a brilliant older teacher who becomes fascinated by Rakel’s quick mind.

Jakob is struck by the similarities between Rakel and Sofja Kovalevskaja, the first woman to become a professor of mathematics, and the subject of the novel he is writing. Just as Kovalevskaja was close to her much older advisor, Rakel and Jakob are drawn to each other and eventually become lovers, although he is already married.

In the years to come, Rakel's academic career soars, but her health declines, and from her bedside she spends hours imagining Sofja’s life while trying to understand her own. With a gaze both naive and mercilessly sharp, she examines what may be her life's only love story, looking for patterns and answers in numbers, music, and literature.

Extraordinarily wise and penetrating, Lean Your Loneliness Slowly Against Mine explores the intricacies of the human heart, the complicated equation that is love, and the search to find meaning and connections when you need them most.

Translated from the Norwegian by Alison McCullough.

2) Dead of Winter by Anders de la Motte to be published on the 11th of November 2021. Sweden.

Vintersjön, Southern Sweden, December 13th 1987, Lucia:

As fifteen-year-old Laura Aulin arrives to spend Christmas with her beloved aunt Hedda, she is also looking forward to spending time with Jack, Hedda's foster son.

But a lot has happened since the summer and Laura soon finds out that things are not what they first appear, as old faces and new seem to be keeping secrets from her. Tensions and jealousies come to an explosive finale at a party on the night of Lucia.

And when the smoke clears, all that is left is ash . . .

2017:

After her aunt's death, Laura returns to the town that she hasn't set foot in since the night of that fatal fire on Lucia Day. The one that claimed the life of her best friend, the beautiful and talented Iben Jensen. The one that Laura feels was her fault.

Haunted by that night, Laura wants nothing more than to leave Vintersjön as soon as possible, but her aunt was digging into the past and soon Laura is drawn into the quest to find out what really happened all those years ago.

But someone wants the past to stay buried . . .

3) The Deathwatch Beetle by Kjell Eriksson to be published on the 16th of November 2021. Sweden.

Kjell Eriksson's next Ann Lindell book, The Deathwatch Beetle is an atmospheric thriller and a tender depiction of the countryside and the people of Roslagen.

Four years have passed since Cecilia Karlsson disappeared from the island of Gräsö in Roslagen. When Ann Lindell receives a tip that she has been seen alive she cannot help getting involved, even though she is no longer with the police.

The black sheep of the island, Nils Lindberg, has never forgotten Cecilia Karlsson, with whom he was in love as a teenager. And he carries a secret. He may not be completely sober all the time, but he has no doubt of what he saw out on the bay just before Cecilia disappeared. Cecilia's parents are desperate, not knowing what happened to their daughter. Yet their silent house contains many things that have been left unsaid.

While Ann struggles to put the jigsaw puzzle together, she is trying to establish herself in her new life together with her lover Edvard who, like herself, is marked by life. At the same time, someone is hiding in a cottage in a remote part of the island. Someone who is looking for revenge...

4) The Skin Drum by Christoffer Petersen to be published on the 16th of November 2021. Greenland.

When an old shaman is accused of kidnapping his teenage grandson, Constable David Maratse must sort through family lies and misdirection to find them before more drastic measures are applied.

The Skin Drum is the twenty-second 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.

Constable David Maratse also features in the popular Greenland Crime series starting with Seven Graves, One Winter, and makes regular cameo appearances in the Greenland Missing Persons series.

5) A Question of Guilt by Jørn Lier Horst to be published on the 25th of November 2021. Norway.

In 1999, seventeen-year-old Tone Vaterland was killed on her way home from work. Desperate for a conviction the police deemed the investigation an open-and-shut case and sent her spurned boyfriend, Danny Momrak, down for murder.
But twenty years later William Wisting receives a puzzling letter. It suggests the wrong man was convicted for Tone's death and the real murderer is still out there.
Wisting is quickly thrown into a terrifying race against time where he must find the sender, decipher this mysterious letter and catch the real killer before they strike again.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>As always we will add books as they become known to us (I will be in Austria for the month of November). Good reading.

Enjoy your trip Ken & perhaps discover a few new Austrian authors along the way