English Translations of Scandinavian/Nordic Mysteries & Thrillers discussion

For the month of July 2024 we have 7 books so far to choose from. Additional books will be added as soon as we are notified. Good reading.

1) Before the Devil Wakes: A Constable Petra 'Piitalaat' Jensen novel by Christoffer Petersen to be published on the 2nd of July 2024. Greenland.

When Luui, the shaman’s daughter, is taken by a shadowy criminal group known only as Colossus, Constable Petra ‘Piitalaat’ Jensen takes matters into her own hands to bring Luui home in this gritty thriller from Greenland.

‘Dark, fresh crime fiction from the far north.’ – Quentin Bates

Before the Devil Wakes is a novel-length story connected to the Greenland Missing Persons stories featuring Constable Petra ‘Piitalaat’ Jensen and a full cast of familiar characters, including a new criminal element first seen in A Dog Called Blitzen.

Darker than the usual Greenland Missing Persons novellas, this novel pushes Petra and the reader into unfamiliar territory. Not for the faint of heart!

2) Big in Sweden by Sally Franson to be published on the 2nd of July 2024. Sweden. 320 pages.

A charming, wise, and laugh-out-loud funny novel following an American woman competing on a Swedish reality show in an attempt to discover her roots. Paulie Johansson has never put much stock in the idea of she has her long-term boyfriend Declan and beloved best friend Jemma, and that’s more than enough for her. Yet one night on a lark, she lets Jemma convince her to audition for Sverige och Mig , a show on Swedish television where Swedish-Americans compete to win the ultimate a reunion with their Swedish relatives. Much to her shock, her drunken submission video wins her a spot on the show, and against Declan’s advice Paulie decides to go for it. Armed with her Polaroid camera, a beat-up copy of Pippi Longstocking, and an unquenchable sense of possibility, Paulie hops on a plane to Sweden and launches into the contest with seven other Americans, all under the watchful eye of a camera crew. At first, Paulie is certain that she and her competitors have nothing in common besides their passports and views their bloodthirsty ambitions with suspicion. Yet amid the increasingly absurd challenges—rowing from Denmark to Sweden in the freezing rain, battling through obstacle courses, competing in a pickled herring eating contest—Paulie finds herself rethinking her snap judgments about her fellow countrymen, while her growing attachment to her Swedish roots increases her resolve to win the competition herself. Grappling with long-held notions of family, friendship, and love—not to mention her feelings for the distractingly handsome Swedish cameraman who’s been assigned to follow her around—Paulie starts to reconsider her past and rethink what she wants for the future. A fish-out-of-water tale filled with warmth, optimism, and wit, Big in Sweden is at its heart a love love for family, friends, country, and—most importantly—oneself.

3) A Kingdom to Claim by Sian Ann Bessey to be published on the 2nd of July 2024. Viking. 352 pages.

Aisley lost everything in a Viking attack. Now, working alongside the one man she trusts, she is ready to fight for her people—and for love.

Wessex, AD 878

Aisley’s young life was changed forever when her father accompanied King Alfred into battle and lost his life in a deadly skirmish with the Vikings. Now, almost seven years later, the Vikings are once again rallying on Wessex’s borders, and Aisley fears that her older brother may have treacherous plans to betray the king by aligning himself with the invading Norsemen. But when Aisley encounters a handsome nobleman in the market, she feels the first stirrings of hope. Though they met only once when Aisley was little more than a child, she recognizes him immediately as one of King Alfred’s most trusted men.

It has been years since Brecc has seen Aisley, but when he spots her in the marketplace, he finds himself inexplicably drawn to the copper-haired young lady with a gift for healing. Before his fledgling feelings for her can develop into something more, however, a Viking attack tears them apart. King Alfred is forced into hiding, and in a matter of days, the Saxon nation is brought to its knees. Unwilling to forsake their people, the king and his men embark on secret raids of Viking encampments. But when Aisley joins the fight, Brecc must reconcile his steadfast loyalty to King Alfred with his growing love for the king’s newest warrior.

4) Ladykiller by Katherine Wood to be published on the 9th of July 2024. Greece/Sweden. 368 pages.

When an heiress goes missing, her best friend races to unravel the secrets behind her disappearance using clues left behind in an explosive manuscript…

Gia and Abby have been best friends since they were girls, forever bonded by the tragedy that unfolded in Greece when they were eighteen. In the aftermath, bookish Abby threw herself into her studies while heiress Gia chronicled the events of that fateful summer in a salacious memoir.

Twelve years later, Gia is back in Greece for the summer with her shiny new husband and a motley crew of glamorous guests, preparing to sell the family estate in the wake of her father’s death. When Abby receives an invitation from Gia to celebrate her birthday in September beneath the Northern Lights, she’s thrilled to be granted the time off from her high-pressure job. But the day of her flight, she receives a mysterious, threatening email in her inbox, and when she and Gia’s brother Benny arrive at the Swedish resort, Gia isn’t there. After days of cryptic messages and unanswered calls, Abby and Benny are worried enough to fly to Greece to check on her.

Only, when they arrive, they find Gia’s beachfront estate eerily deserted, the sole clue to her whereabouts a manuscript she wrote detailing the events leading up to her disappearance. The pages reveal the dark truth about Gia’s provocative new marriage and the dirty secrets of the guests they entertained with fizzy champagne under the hot Mediterranean sun. As tensions rise, Gia feels less and less safe in her own home. But the pages end abruptly, leaving Abby and Benny with more questions than answers.

Where is Gia now? And, more importantly, will they find her before it’s too late?

5) The Danish Secret to Happy Kids: How the Viking Way of Raising Children Makes Them Happier, Healthier, and More Independent by Helen Russell to be published on the 9th of July 2024. Denmark. 384 pages.

What do Vikings know about raising children? Turns out, quite a bit. After a decade of living in Denmark, and raising her three kids there, Helen Russell noticed that Nordic kids (or mini-Vikings) are different from children raised in other parts of the world. They eat differently. They learn differently. They play, dress, and even sleep differently. They run, jump, climb, fall and get up again, out in nature, for hours a day. It's cold and wet and uncomfortable—often. But they cope. Even though the weather's terrible and it's dark October through March. And then they grow up to be some of the happiest adults on the planet. So her question how?In The Danish Secret to Happy Kids, Russell dives deep into the parenting culture of Denmark and the other Nordic nations, from parental leave policies to school structure to screen time, uncovering surprising strategies and customs that lead to largely happy, well-adjusted humans over the long term. This fascinating peek behind the cultural curtain allows readers to marvel over infants comfortably sleeping outside in chilly temperatures, school-age kids wielding axes in the woods, and teenagers spending a year or two at efterskole, a special boarding school designed to prepare adolescents for independent life in the real world—a concept that is beginning to be adopted in other nations.Refreshingly funny and unfailingly optimistic about the new generation of humans growing up in the world right now, The Danish Secret to Happy Kids is a heart-warming love letter to Russell's adopted homeland, a comforting armchair travel read, and proof that we could all use a bit more Viking in our everyday lives.

6) Boys Who Hurt by Eva Björg Ægisdóttir to be published on the 18th of July 2024. Iceland. 276 pages.

Tense, twisty and shocking, Boys Who Hurt is the fifth addictive installment in the award-winning Forbidden Iceland series, as dark events from the past endanger everything…

Fresh from maternity leave, Detective Elma finds herself confronted with a complex case, when a man is found murdered in a holiday cottage in the depths of the Icelandic countryside – the victim of a frenzied knife attack, with a shocking message scrawled on the wall above him.

At home with their baby daughter, Sævar is finding it hard to let go of work, until the chance discovery in a discarded box provides him with a distraction. Could the diary of a young boy, detailing the events of a long-ago summer have a bearing on Elma’s case?

Once again, the team at West Iceland CID have to contend with local secrets in the small town of Akranes, where someone has a vested interest in preventing the truth from coming to light. And Sævar has secrets of his own that threaten to destroy his and Elma’s newfound happiness.

7) Shrouded by Sólveig Pálsdóttir to be published on the 20th of July 2024. Iceland. 257 pages.

A retired, reclusive woman is found on a bitter winter morning, clubbed to death in Reykjavik's old graveyard.

Detectives Guðgeir and Elsa Guðrún face one of their toughest cases yet, as they try to piece together the details of Arnhildur's austere life in her Red House in the oldest part of the city.

Why was this solitary, private woman attending séances, and why was she determined to keep her severe financial difficulties so secret?

Could the truth be buried deep in her past and a long history of family enmity, or could there be something more?

A stranger keeps a watchful eye on the graveyard and Arnhildur's house. With the detectives running out of leads, could the Medium, blessed and cursed with uncanny abilities, shed any light on Arnhildur’s lonely death?

8) Tail Dragger: A Short Story of Aerial Combat from Greenland by Christoffer Petersen to be published on the 6th of July 2024. Greenland.

When jet fighters are scrambled in the Arctic, Lieutenant Ukaliina “Sled Dog” Nakinngi refuses to miss out on the action, even if it means flying an old warhorse.

Climb into the cockpit with Greenlandic fighter pilot Ukaliina “Sled Dog” Nakinngi in this short, adrenaline-fuelled story, and join self-confessed Top Gun fanboy Christoffer Petersen in this tongue-in-cheek adventure from Greenland.

9) The Long Water by Stef Penney to be published on the 4th of July 2024. Norway. 400 Pages.

Author of the Costa-prizewinning, world-wide bestseller The Tenderness of Wolves, Stef Penney, returns to her snow-covered heartland in this tense mystery set in a small Scandinavian town.

Nordland. A region in the Norwegian Arctic; a remote valley that stretches from the sea up to the mountains and glaciers.

It is May in what was once a prosperous mining community. The snows are nearly gone and it's a time of spring and school-leavers' celebrations - until Daniel, a popular teenage boy, goes missing. Conflicting stories circulate among his friends, of parties and wild behaviour.

As the search for Daniel widens, the police open a disused mine in the mountains. They find human remains, but this body has been there for decades, its identity a mystery.

Everyone in this tight knit, isolated community is touched by these events: misanthropic Svea, whose long life in the area stretches back to the heyday of the mines, and beyond. She has cut all ties with her family, except for her granddaughter, Elin, an outsider like her grandmother. Elin and her friend Benny, both impacted by Daniel while he was alive, become entangled in the hunt for answers, while Svea has deep, dark secrets of her own.

10) The Oyster Diver's Secret by Caroline Säfstrand to be published on the 30th of July 2024. Sweden. 341 Pages.

Set on the beautiful Swedish coast, this is a story of deep friendship and hope, about facing the worst parts of ourselves and stepping into a new future.

Inez is ready to clean out her life. Seventy years old and no longer working as a women’s fiction author, her life has been accumulating in piles around her Swedish cottage by the sea. But it’s not just the house that needs cleaning. Inez is also ready to write one last book—her first true one—about the oyster diver, her friend who disappeared so long ago.

Then Meja enters Inez’s life. Thirty-seven years old and hopelessly lost, Meja survives on the kindness of her disinterested boyfriend, a series of temp jobs, and bitterness over her mother’s constant disapproval. The second Inez sees her, she despises her. Meja seems just like the wispy women that Inez used to write about, except those women actually change.

But as summer heats up on the Swedish coast, and stark truths are revealed, Inez and Meja will find themselves transformed by an unexpected friendship. Will the mystery of the oyster diver tear it all apart? Or could their new friendship be the key to uncovering the mystery?

11) Chill Factor: A Short Story of Fighter Pilots from Greenland by Christoffer Petersen to be published on the 30th of July 2024. Greenland.

During some much needed down time, Ukaliina takes a break from the skies, only to be tempted back into the cockpit when a test pilot calls in sick and an experimental project needs a replacement.

Climb into the cockpit with Greenlandic fighter pilot Ukaliina “Sled Dog” Nakinngi in this short, adrenaline-fuelled, story set in the Arctic and America, and join self-confessed Top Gun fanboy Christoffer Petersen in this tongue-in-cheek adventure from Greenland.

12) "The Long Water" by Stef Penny to be published on the 4th of July 2024. Norway. On Amazon not on Goodreads yet.

Author of the Costa-prizewinning, world-wide bestseller The Tenderness of Wolves, Stef Penney, returns to her snow-covered heartland in this tense mystery set in a small Scandinavian town.

Nordland. A region in the Norwegian Arctic; a remote valley that stretches from the sea up to the mountains and glaciers.

It is May in what was once a prosperous mining community. The snows are nearly gone and it's a time of spring and school-leavers' celebrations - until Daniel, a popular teenage boy, goes missing. Conflicting stories circulate among his friends, of parties and wild behaviour.

As the search for Daniel widens, the police open a disused mine in the mountains. They find human remains, but this body has been there for decades, its identity a mystery.

Everyone in this tight knit, isolated community is touched by these events: misanthropic Svea, whose long life in the area stretches back to the heyday of the mines, and beyond. She has cut all ties with her family, except for her granddaughter, Elin, an outsider like her grandmother. Elin and her friend Benny, both impacted by Daniel while he was alive, become entangled in the hunt for answers, while Svea has deep, dark secrets of her own.