English Translations of Scandinavian/Nordic Mysteries & Thrillers discussion

For the month of April we have six books to choose from and we will add books as they become known to us. Good reading.

1) Enemies of the Crown by Peter Gibbons to be published on the 4th of April 2025. Viking. 338 pages.

A weakened crown. A country besieged by Vikings, suffering under the oppression of a powerful church.

994AD

King Aethelred the Unready’s rule falters. Policies recommended by the controlling bishops invite more attacks upon his Saxon kingdom as Sweyn Forkbeard, Viking battle-king of the Danes, grows in power; bloodthirsty for conquest.

Beornoth, Viking-killer and kings thegn believed his days in the shield wall to be over until summoned by the king to enforce a policy of retribution against his enemies.

In a time of shifting loyalties, alongside a savage warband of cruel Norman warriors, Beornoth embarks upon a brutal quest to rid England of King Aethelred’s so-called Viking enemies.

However, when this murderous campaign leads to the door of an old friend, Beornoth must choose sides, as his loyalty to king, country, and his brothers of the sword are put to the test.

Can Beornoth triumph over insurmountable odds in this shield splintering battle for the future of England itself?

2) Stay with Me by Hanne Ørstavik to be published on the 15th of April 2025. Norway. 216 pages.

The narrator of this novel is a Norwegian writer living in Milan. A year has passed since the premature death of her Italian husband. She falls in love. M is fifteen years younger than her, but the connection between them is intense and of a kind she has never felt before. Then, as his vulnerability starts showing, so does his troubling rage. She knows this rage. It was always present in her childhood, and it created an all-encompassing fear in her.

In Stay with Me, Hanne Ørstavik returns to her theme of love, this time exploring how it can be intertwined with insecurity, fear and violence. How do you recognize love? What if your deeply rooted need to protect yourself also means shutting love out?

‘Soul-searching on speed. Ørstavik writes with such distressing courage that as a reader, you become sweaty-palmed. Stay with Me is Hanne Ørstavik at her very best; so intense and profound that the unease becomes contagious . . . Above all, she conveys a spiritual openness that feels naked and vibrantly intense.’ Dagbladet

3) An Introduction to the Sagas of Icelanders by Carl Phelpstead to be published on the 23rd day of April 2024. Iceland. 224 pages.

Combining an accessible approach with innovative scholarship, An Introduction to the Sagas of Icelanders provides up-to-date perspectives on a unique medieval literary genre that has fascinated the English-speaking world for more than two centuries. Carl Phelpstead draws on historical context, contemporary theory, and close reading to deepen our understanding of Icelandic saga narratives about the island's early history. Phelpstead explores the origins and cultural setting of the genre, demonstrating the rich variety of oral and written source traditions that writers drew on to produce the sagas. He provides fresh, theoretically informed discussions of major themes such as national identity, gender and sexuality, and nature and the supernatural, relating the Old Norse-Icelandic texts to questions addressed by postcolonial studies, feminist and queer theory, and ecocriticism. He then presents readings of select individual sagas, pointing out how the genre's various source traditions and thematic concerns interact. Including an overview of the history of English translations that shows how they have been stimulated and shaped by ideas about identity, and featuring a glossary of critical terms, this book is an essential resource for students of the literary form. A volume in the series New Perspectives on Medieval Literature: Authors and Traditions, edited by R. Barton Palmer and Tison Pugh.

4) The Ice Warden: A Constable Petra Jensen Novella by Christoffer Petersen to be published on the 24th of April 2025. Greenland. 81 pages.

When a child goes missing in a remote settlement, Constable Petra ‘Piitalaat’ Jensen is thrust onto the team tasked with saving her, without ever really knowing why.

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

The Ice Warden 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.

5) Out of the Dark by Heidi Amsinck to be published on the 24th of April 2025. Denmark.

Matilde Clausen, 9, vanishes from a crowded playground in the middle of Copenhagen, triggering a frantic search across the city.

When a possible link emerges to the disappearance of Lea Høgh, 10, six years ago, DI Henrik Jungersen is thrown back into the nightmare that almost finished his career. Desperate for redemption, but barred from reopening the old case, Henrik turns to his estranged lover, Dagbladet chief crime reporter Jensen, for help. In denial about a big change approaching in her personal life, Jensen throws herself into an investigation reaching deep into Denmark’s underworld.

Will Henrik, Jensen and her troubled teenage apprentice Gustav manage to escape the darkness that threatens to engulf them, in time to solve the mystery?

What really happened to Lea? And where is Matilde?

6) The First Snow Of Winter by Morgan Greene to be published on the 28th of March 2025. Wales? Jamie is Swedish.

As winter closes in, a deadly game begins ...With tensions at an all time high, the team is divided, pulled in different directions as they hunt different prey. Jamie doesn't know which way to turn, but when the killings begin, things become blindingly apparent. They're not just dealing with a killer doing this out of necessity, but one doing it out of pleasure.

He's skilled, experienced, and he knows who is chasing him, and seemingly, how to avoid them at every step.

Can Jamie outwit a killer who's been trained to beat her? And can she kept her nerve as the stakes grow ever higher? With old friends and new enemies swarming around her, this is Jamie's toughest case yet, and will push her to the breaking point. She'll need to call on all of her experience, and all of her contacts, if she hopes to win this fight. But, even if she does, what will it cost her?

***

The First Snow Of Winter is the fifth heart-pounding instalment of the Jamie Johansson Files series, and the 12th book in the Jamie Johansson series overall. Perfect for new and existing fans of the series, and readers of Simon McCleave, DS Butler, and Angela Marsons.

7) Between Fear and Fate: A Journey of Shadow and Strength Psychological and emotional odyssey Novel by Sophia Rayneto be published on the 8th of April 2025. Finland. 91 pages.

Between Fear and Fate: A Journey of Shadow and Strength is a psychological thriller woven with lyrical introspection, cultural nuance, and the quiet pulse of suspense. When Tara, a young woman from Hyderabad, takes her first job far from home in the haunting stillness of Helsinki, she’s unprepared for the chilling unease that greets her. Strange occurrences, fragmented memories, and an ever-tightening grip of fear shadow her days—forcing her to confront truths buried in silence.

As the Nordic winter closes in, Tara’s unraveling isn’t just about what lies around her—but within. With echoes of the Bhagavad Gita gently guiding her inner war, she must navigate isolation, cultural displacement, and the fractures of her own mind to uncover what’s real, what’s hidden, and what has always waited beneath the surface.

But healing is not a moment—it is a journey. From the sterile corridors of an archive in Finland to the sun-drenched nostalgia of her childhood home in Hyderabad, Tara's story is one of reckoning, resilience, and quiet transformation.

This is not just a tale of suspense. It is a portrait of a woman who learns that the fiercest battles are often fought in silence, and that courage isn't loud—it’s patient. It’s enduring. It’s coming home to oneself.

For readers who love emotionally layered fiction with atmospheric tension and poetic prose, Between Fear and Fate is a powerful testament to the human spirit’s ability to endure, evolve, and rise.

8) The Long Shot: A Guerrilla Greenland short story by Christoffer Petersen to be published on the 24th of April 2025. Greenland.

In a possible future, the United States of America has just bought Greenland, but not without consequences.

When an opportunity for a decisive action presents itself, the guerrillas’ most passionate warrior, Kamiila Sorsuttartoq, will stop at nothing to make it work, even though the chances of success are slim, nigh on impossible.

The Long Shot is a short twenty-minute read plucked from Christoffer Petersen’s Guerrilla Greenland series of speculative novellas.

Pick up The Long Shot today and join the fight for Greenland!

9) Tempest Rising: A short story of tenacity in the Arctic by Christoffer Petersen to be published on the 29th of April 2025. Greenland.

When a perfect storm cuts a small Arctic community off from the outside world, Constable David Maratse is determined to find a way to reach them, no matter the cost.

Tempest Rising is the twenty-seventh 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.

10) The Sea Cemetery by Aslak Nore to be published on the 24th of April 2025. Norway. 528 pages.

There is no love lost between the Oslo and Bergen branches of the powerful Falck family. So when its steely matriarch dies with no will to be found, the seeds of an inheritance dispute are sown.

Yet her legacy could be more damaging still. A manuscript confiscated by the secret police in the seventies holds devastating secrets about the Falcks' activities during the war. Her granddaughter Sasha is set on uncovering the truth, whatever the cost, bringing her into conflict with her father, whose family loyalty is matched only by his patriotic fervour. And in the wings waits Hans Falck, war doctor and philanderer, head of the impoverished Bergen branch, who has a few secrets of his own.

It all leads back to the sinking of the SS Prinsesse Ragnhild , lost to a British mine in 1940. But can the official verdict be trusted? The shocking truth lies 300 metres under the sea.

Part literary thriller, part sweeping family saga, The Sea Cemetery is a dark and dramatic tale of secrets, betrayals and doomed love, drawing on the true story of one of Norway's most devastating maritime disasters.

Translated from the Norwegian by Deborah Dawkin

11) Uprising by Paul Bernardi to be published on the 9th of April 2025. Viking, 284 pages.

Summer 1067.

Northumbria.

Oslac, thegn of the village of Acum, feels cheated - having been robbed of the chance to kill his enemy by his own kinsman.

Instead, Gundulf, the erstwhile Lord of Hexham and murderer of Acum's villagers, is now awaiting justice for his crimes in Bebbanburh, Earl Oswulf’s fortress capital far to the north.

But when Oslac narrowly escapes death at the hands of Gundulf’s assassin, he realises he will never be safe while the Dane lives. Summoning his closest companions, Oslac heads north to demand Oswulf put an end to Gundulf’s life - only to find the prisoner has escaped.

Tracking the fugitive into the wild hills and dales of Northumbria – places far beyond the reach of Oswulf’s power – Oslac falls into Gundulf’s trap when the earl’s warband is ambushed with catastrophic consequences.

Elsewhere, unrest in the north of England is growing. Impotent in the face of Norman avaricious brutality, the Saxon nobility can do nothing to prevent their ancestral lands being passed to foreign invaders. It can only be endured for so long, and a reckoning is coming.

Once again, Oslac must put aside his personal vendetta to join with the few remaining great lords of Anglo-Saxon England in what may prove to be the final, climactic stand against their Norman overlords.

The song of swords will echo across the land once more.

The Ones Who Get Chosen Ulf Brånebro to be published on the 21st of July 2025. Sweden. 154 pages.

Hey fellow fans of Nordic Noir!

I've long been captivated by the quiet intensity and subtle brutality of Scandinavian thrillers—so much so, I recently decided to write my own series. Set in a small Swedish village nicknamed "Coffinville" for the coffin factory that is the main industry. The stories focus on the violence hidden beneath silence and the darkness masked by tradition.

My first book, The Ones Who Get Chosen, just dropped on Amazon (it's currently free on Kindle for a limited time), and book two is nearly ready. As I begin outlining future stories, I'd love your insights:

What deeper themes, uncomfortable truths, or social issues do you feel Nordic noir rarely addresses or could explore further?

To give you some context:

- Book 1: Follows a closeted investigator returning to his rural hometown, becoming entangled in a case involving a murdered girl, a missing teen, and a village that would rather bury its secrets than face them.

- Book 2 Centers on domestic violence, systemic failure, and a community's complicity in victim-blaming to maintain peace.

This series isn't about brilliant detectives or dramatic plot twists—it's about shame, silence, masculinity, belonging, and the subtle horrors of everyday complicity.

I'm genuinely curious: What would you like to see more deeply explored in future installments? Themes, taboo subjects, or neglected perspectives—all suggestions are welcome!

Looking forward to your thoughts!

13) Tempest Rising: A short story of tenacity in the Arctic by Christoffer Petersen to be published on the 28th of April 2025. Greenland. 68 pages.

When a perfect storm cuts a small Arctic community off from the outside world, Constable David Maratse is determined to find a way to reach them, no matter the cost.

Tempest Rising is the twenty-seventh 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.

Pick up Tempest Rising and take a firm hold of Greenland today!