English Translations of Scandinavian/Nordic Mysteries & Thrillers discussion

For the month of January 2024 we have 12 books that are available for reading. We will add books as they become known to us as always. Good reading.

1) Witchcraft: A History in Thirteen Trials by Marion Gibson to be published on the 1st of January 2024. Sami, et al.

A fascinating, vivid global history of witch trials across Europe, Africa, and the Americas, told through thirteen distinct trials that illuminate the pattern of demonization and conspiratorial thinking that has profoundly shaped human history.

Witchcraft is a dramatic journey through thirteen witch trials across history, some famous—like the Salem witch trials—and some on Vardø island, Norway, in the 1620s, where an indigenous Sami woman was accused of murder; in France in 1731, during the country’s last witch trial, where a young woman was pitted against her confessor and cult leader; in Pennsylvania in 1929 where a magical healer was labelled a “witch”; in Lesotho in 1948, where British colonial authorities executed local leaders. Exploring how witchcraft became feared, decriminalized, reimagined, and eventually reframed as gendered persecution, Witchcraft takes on the intersections between gender and power, indigenous spirituality and colonial rule, and political conspiracy and individual resistance.

Offering a vivid, compelling, and dramatic story, unspooling through centuries, about the men and women who were accused—some of whom survived their trials, and some who did not— Witchcraft empowers the people who were and are victimized and marginalized, giving a voice to those who were silenced by history.

2) Radio Iceland by Brian Byrd to be published on the 9th of January 2024. Iceland.

RADIO ICELAND

"Radio Iceland," a chilling narrative set amidst a backdrop of ethereal landscapes, weaves an extraordinary tale of adventure and terror. Four college friends, once inseparable, reunite in Iceland, where their quest for rediscovery turns into a harrowing struggle against an unknowable menace. In the land where glaciers crawl and the aurora borealis sings, a peculiar old radio becomes the centerpiece of a saga that deftly blends the natural splendor of Iceland with the supernatural. The innocuous device—bought on a whim—soon reveals itself to be anything but benign. As otherworldly whispers spill from its speakers, the friends are ensnared in a vortex of ancient curses, spectral entities, and prophecies of doom.As they peel back the layers of mystery shrouding the artifact, they are confronted with unsettling truths about the radio, which lacks any discernible markings, and its role as a seeming conduit between realms. A mounting sense of dread, coupled with a persistence of the uncanny, relentlessly pursues them, even as they endeavor to escape its grasp."Radio Iceland" does not merely indulge in the tropes of the supernatural but addresses the profound unease of the unknowable. The narrative drives readers through the scenic fjords, geysers, and the untouched wilderness of Iceland, mirroring the turmoil within the characters confronting their own fears.The engrossing story offers a potent blend of psychological horror and deep reflection. It examines the bond of friendship against the forces of darkness and bears witness to the disintegration of rationality under the weight of a haunting curse. This novel promises readers a compelling journey through the spectral and the psychological, leaving them questioning the reality that we, in our ignorance, believe to be firmly within our grasp. Immerse yourself in a tale where the line between myth and reality blurs, and join the quartet on a journey that promises no sanctuary from the inescapable broadcast whispered across the static of "Radio Iceland."

3) Ædnan: An EpicAednan: An Epic by Linnea Axelsson to be published on the 9th of January 2024. Sweden.

The winner of Sweden’s most prestigious literary award makes her American debut with an epic, multigenerational novel-in-verse about two Sámi families and their quest to stay together across a century of migration, violence, and colonial trauma.

In Northern Sámi, the word Ædnan means the land, the earth, and my mother. These are all crucial forces within the lives of the Indigenous families that animate this groundbreaking an astonishing verse novel that chronicles a hundred years of a book that will one day stand alongside Halldór Laxness’s Independent People and Sigrid Undset’s Kristin Lavransdatter as an essential Scandinavian epic.

The tale begins in the 1910s, as Ristin and her family migrate their herd of reindeer to summer grounds. Along the way, forced to separate due to the newly formed border between Sweden and Norway, Ristin loses one of her sons to a deadly accident, a loss that will ripple across the rest of this book. In the wake of this tragedy, Ristin struggles to manage what’s left of her family and her community.

In the 1970s, Lise, as part of a new generation of Sámi grappling with questions of identity and inheritance, reflects on her traumatic childhood, when she was forced to leave her parents and was placed in a Nomad School to be stripped of the language of her ancestors. Finally, in the 2010s we meet Lise’s daughter, Sandra, an embodiment of Indigenous resilience, an activist fighting for reparations in a highly publicized land rights trial, in a time when the Sámi language is all but lost.

Weaving together the voices of half a dozen characters, from elders to young people unsure of their heritage, Axelsson has created a moving family saga around the consequences of colonial settlement. Ædnan is a powerful reminder of how durable language can be, even when it is borrowed, especially when it has to hold what no longer remains. “I was the weight / in the stone you brought / back from the coast // to place on / my grave,” one character says to another from beyond the grave. “And I flew above / the boat calling / to you // There will be rain / there will be rain.”

4) Termush by Sven Holm to be published on the 9th of January 2024. Denmark.

Introduced by Jeff VanderMeer, welcome to a luxury hotel at the end of the world in this post-apocalyptic 1967 dystopia ...

The day we came up from the shelters four people were found dead on the steps of the hotel.

Welcome to Termush: a luxury coastal resort like no other. All the wealthy guests are survivors: preppers who reserved rooms long before the Disaster. Inside, they embrace exclusive radiation shelters, ambient music and lavish provisions; outside, radioactive dust falls on the sculpture park, security men step over dead birds, and a reconnaissance party embarks.

Despite weathering a nuclear apocalypse, their problems are only just beginning. Soon, the Management begins censoring news; disruptive guests are sedated; initial generosity towards Strangers ceases as fears of contamination and limited resources grow. But as the numbers - and desperation - of external survivors increase, they must decide what it means to forge a new moral code at the end (or beginning?) of the world ...

5) Cold Victory by Karl Marlantes to be published on the 9th of January 2024. Finland.

From New York Times bestselling author Karl Marlantes comes a propulsive and sweeping novel in which loyalty, friendship, and love are put to the ultimate test Helsinki, 1947. Finland teeters between the Soviet Union and the West. Everyone is being watched. A wrong look or a wrong word could end in catastrophe. Natalya Bobrova, from Russia, and Louise Koski, from the United States, are young wives of their country’s military attachés. When they meet at an embassy party, their husbands, Arnie and Mikhail, both world-class skiers, drunkenly challenge each other to a friendly – but secret – cross-country wilderness race. Louise is delighted, but Natalya is worried. Stalin and Beria’s secret police rule with unforgiving brutality. If news of the race gets out and Mikhail loses, Natalya knows it would mean his death, her imprisonment, and the loss of her two children. Meanwhile, Louise, who is childless, uses the race as an opportunity to raise money for a local orphanage, naïve to the danger it will bring to Natalya and her family. Too late to stop Louise’s scheme, a horrified Natalya watches as news of the race spreads across the globe as newspapers and politicians spin it as a symbolic freedom versus communism. Desperate to undo her mistake, Louise must reach Arnie to tell him to throw the race and save Mikhail – but how? The two racers are in a world of their own, unreachable in Finland’s arctic wilderness. This is another masterful novel from the author of the modern classic Matterhorn , whose “breakneck writing style is both passionate and haunting” (W. E. B. Griffin). Layered with fast-paced action, historical detail, and a keen eye for the way totalitarianism and loss of truth and privacy threatens love and friendship, Cold Victory is a triumph.

6) The Curse of Pietro Houdini by Derek B. Miller to be published on the 16th of January 2924, Norwegian author.

From the Dagger Award–winning author of Norwegian by Night comes a vivid, thrilling, and moving World War II art-heist-adventure tale where enemies become heroes, allies become villains, and a child learns what it means to become an adult—for fans of All the Light We Cannot See.

August, 1943. Fourteen-year-old Massimo is all alone. Newly orphaned and fleeing from Rome after surviving the American bombing raid that killed his parents, Massimo is attacked by thugs and finds himself bloodied at the base of the Montecassino. It is there in the Benedictine abbey’s shadow that a charismatic and cryptic man calling himself Pietro Houdini, the self-proclaimed “Master Artist and confidante of the Vatican,” rescues Massimo and brings him up the mountain to serve as his assistant in preserving the treasures that lay within the monastery walls.

But can Massimo believe what Pietro is saying, particularly when Massimo has secrets too? Who is this extraordinary man? When it becomes evident that Montecassino will soon become the front line in the war, Pietro Houdini and Massimo execute a plan to smuggle three priceless Titian paintings to safety down the mountain. They are joined by a nurse concealing a nefarious past, a café owner turned murderer, a wounded but chipper German soldier, and a pair of lovers along with their injured mule, Ferrari. Together they will lie, cheat, steal, fight, kill, and sin their way through battlefields to survive, all while smuggling the Renaissance masterpieces and the bag full of ancient Greek gold they have rescued from the “safe keeping” of the Germans.

Heartfelt, powerfully engaging, and in the tradition of City of Thieves by David Benioff, The Curse of Pietro Houdini is a work of storytelling bravado: a thrilling action-packed adventure heist, an imaginative chronicle of forgotten history, and a philosophical coming-of-age epic where a child navigates one of the most enigmatic and morally complex fronts of World War II and lives to tell the tale.

7) The Guests by Agnes Ravatn to be published on the 18th of January 2024. Norway.

A young couple are entangled in a nightmare spiral of lies when they pretend to be someone else …
Exquisitely dark psychological suspense by the international bestselling author of The Bird Tribunal.
It started with a lie…
Married couple Karin and Kai are looking for a pleasant escape from their busy lives, and reluctantly accept an offer to stay in a luxurious holiday home in the Norwegian fjords. Instead of finding a relaxing retreat, however, their trip becomes a reminder of everything lacking in their own lives, and in a less-than-friendly meeting with their new neighbours, Karin tells a little white lie…
Against the backdrop of the glistening water and within the claustrophobic walls of the ultra-modern house, Karin's insecurities blossom, and her lie grows ever bigger, entangling her and her husband in a nightmare spiral of deceits with absolutely no means of escape…
Simmering with suspense and dark humour, The Guests is a gripping psychological drama about envy and aspiration … and something more menacing, hiding just below that glittering surface…

8) Gryphon by M.L. Buchman to be published on the 23rd of January 2024. Sweden.

With the rising threat of Russia, Sweden joins NATO for its own protection. But someone wants to make them pay—in blood. Sweden’s home-built, world-class jet fighters, the Saab JAS 39E Gripen—named for the mythological Gryphon—are falling out of the skies. The stability, the very existence of NATO could be torn apart, as if trapped in the Gryphon’s mighty eagle claws. Can Miranda’s team of air-crash investigators solve the crisis before the powerful lion-half shreds them asunder?

9) Missing by Michael Katz Krefeld to be published on the 23rd of January 2024. Denmark.

The search for a missing person leads Ravn into the heart of a deadly conspiracy with deep historical roots in this thriller from Denmark’s King of Crime.

Suspended from his job, criminal investigator Thomas “Ravn” Ravnsholdt lives a lonely, dissolute existence—until he crosses paths with a woman desperate for help locating her missing brother. Driven to embezzlement, the man has vanished without a trace on a visit to Berlin. Ravn’s investigation takes a chilling turn when he uncovers a pattern of similar disappearances involving single men in the German capital.

As the pieces of this puzzle start to fall into place, Ravn finds himself entangled in a web of darkness and deception that dates back to the era of the Stasi, the fearsome East German secret police. In a race against time to discover the fate of the missing men, Ravn unwittingly unleashes the horrors of the Communist past, putting himself and his client in grave peril. Will he find the answers he seeks, or will the shadows of history swallow him whole?

From the award-winning author of Derailed and Darkness Calls , the electrifying second book of the Detective Ravn series is a tense, politically charged crime thriller in the Scandinavian tradition.

10) The Ice Quake: A Constable Petra Jensen Novella by Christoffer Petersen to be published on the 23rd of January 2024. Greenland.

When an ice dam breaks and an elderly resident goes missing, it’s up to Constable Petra Jensen to find him before he disappears beneath the ice.

The Ice Quake is the twenty-second in the Greenland Missing Persons series of novellas and novels set in the harsh, unpredictable Arctic, rich in tradition, myth and culture.

The Ice Quake continues the adventures of Constable Petra ‘Piitalaat’ Jensen, ably assisted by interesting characters, together with a few familiar faces making cameo appearances in the series.

The Greenland Missing Persons stories are set prior to The Ice Star and Seven Graves, One Winter.

11) Tales of the Forest: Skogsvasen by Keith Napoleon Castellano by Keith Napoleon Castellano to be published on the 24th of January 2024. Sweden.

"Tales of the Skogsvasen" is a captivating collection of over 60 tales that unveils a hidden world of Swedish folklore. These stories, translated for the first time in history, were originally fragments of ancient tales gathered by scholars a century ago. Meticulously researching and elaborating upon these fragments, the author breathes new life into each narrative, transforming them into enchanting fairy tales. Drawing upon the rich heritage of Swedish folklore, the stories in this volume take readers on a journey through mystical forests, encounter magical creatures, and explore the intricate balance between the human realm and the supernatural. With vivid imagery and evocative storytelling, readers will be immersed in a world filled with captivating adventures, where heroes and heroines face both external challenges and internal struggles. Each tale in "Tales of the Skogsvasen" captures the essence of traditional storytelling while offering a fresh perspective. From valiant warriors battling malevolent spirits to cunning tricksters outwitting magical creatures, these stories resonate with universal themes of love, courage, and resilience. They transport readers to a realm where ancient traditions merge seamlessly with contemporary imagination, bridging the gap between the past and the present. Through this extraordinary collection, readers of all ages will discover the rich tapestry of Swedish folklore, filled with awe-inspiring encounters, moral lessons, and a deep connection to nature. "Tales of the Skogsvasen" stands as a testament to the enduring power of storytelling, breathing new life into long-forgotten tales and preserving the heritage of a culture for generations to come.

12) The Mountain King by Anders de la Motte to be published on the 30th of January 2024. Sweden.

This atmospheric and sinister mystery, perfect for fans of the Nordic thrillers of Jo Nesbo and Stieg Larsson, follows an overachieving female inspector investigating the darkest side of humanity.

Criminal inspector Leonore Asker seems to have the leading position at Malmö’s Major Crime Division within reach. But things go awry when, in the middle of a high-profile kidnapping case, management relegates her to the so-called Department of Lost Souls—the unit for odd, cold cases banished to the basement of the police station.

Despite the humiliation, Asker is drawn into one of the more peculiar cases. Someone is placing small ominous figures in town and one of them seems to represent the missing woman from the kidnapping case. As Asker’s investigation takes her to abandoned buildings, she reaches out to a local architecture expert and together they explore the sinister recesses of the city and discover that an unusual kind of evil lurks in the shadow.

13) Secretariat Plot: Conspiracy in the Arctic - Geopolitical Thriller by Sougata to be published on the 10th of January 2024. Greenland, Norway, et. al.

A secretariat plot and conspiracy in the Arctic beckons you into a world where politics and profit collide in a relentless battle for global supremacy. In the frozen expanse of the Arctic circle, where icy winds howl and secrets lie buried beneath the snow, an epic geopolitical thriller unfolds.The story is real and this will leave the readers grasping for breath with suspense, thrill, twists and adventure.Former war correspondent turned United Nations Secretariat operative, Den Smil, finds himself thrust into the heart of a chilling conspiracy codenamed 'Polar Bear.' What starts as a mission to mediate a Russian coal mine dispute in Svalbard, soon spirals into a perilous journey to expose a global plot that could reshape the very fabric of the world order. Governments, Business houses and shadowy alliances converge in a dance of intrigue. Den Smil must navigate a treacherous web of deception to unearth the truth.The story starts with the United Nations climate conference in Katowice, Poland. But the prelude of the conspiracy was planned long back in Svalbard to exploit the Arctic's natural pattern for economic gain. Then the story unfolds in a pursuit of power through a complex spider web. Den will be trapped in Ethiopia but may escape. He has to travel across Greenland & Norway to consolidate the leads and uncover the sinister plot. There is negligible chance that he would discover the root cause and catch the mastermind legitimately. A stranger truth is waiting though. If he can't make it, the Earth and the World power will change forever. The espionage, assassination, malfunctioning and complex business deals shroud the Arctic in uncertainty, as the fate of Earth's economy, rare resources, and crucial trade routes teeter on a precarious edge.Geopolitics heats up in the icy embrace of the North Pole.As you turn the pages, prepare to be drawn into a gripping narrative filled with unexpected twists, and realize the Arctic Circle emerges as the epicenter of a geopolitical storm.Are you ready to embark on a journey where secrets could thaw the world order anytime? Witness it.

14) The Bloody Trail: A Scandinavian Thriller by Erik Beider to be published on the 5th of January 2024. Norway, Sweden, Denmark.

A murder of a well-respected citizen in a small town in Western Norway thrusts the local police into a manhunt, until the Norwegian intelligence agency, Kripos, takes control of the case, veiling it in secrecy.

Just a few days later, another similar murder and an arson occur in a forest in Southern Sweden, where the local police discover clues that connects back to the killing in Norway and reveals ties to the Bosnian war.

Norwegian and Swedish authorities centre their investigation on a Danish tourist in a motorhome. As the case unfolds, the implicated parties are compelled to challenge their faith in justice and the law.