English Translations of Scandinavian/Nordic Mysteries & Thrillers discussion

For the month of May 2025 we have 9 books to chose from right now. As books come available during the month we will add them to the list. Good reading.

1) The Painted Room: A Tale of Mantua by Inger Christensen to be published on the 6th of May 2025. Italy (Danish author) 96 pages.

The frescoed picture of the duke and his family on the walls of the Camera degli Sposi looks so peaceful -- you would never guess that a murder has just taken place.Prince Lodovico of Mantua invites the painter Mantegna to his palace to decorate one of the rooms. The painting is slowly completed and the prince's secretary records its progress in his gossip-laden diary. The story is then taken up by the prince's daughter, the dwarf Nana, whose story digs deeper into characters and motivations around the palace, and is quite forthright about deceits and vendettas, assassination and incest within its walls. It is completed by the painter's young son, Bernardino, who introduces a note of high fantasy into the narrative. What results is a beautiful yet startling picture of the Renaissance, as rich and colorful as the men and women depicted on the palace walls.

2) The Grown-Up by Saskia Noort to be published on the 6th of May 2025. Denmark & Holland. 218 pages.

A mother vanishes. A daughter searches—down a dark and twisted trail in a bestselling edge-of-the-seat thriller about secrets, lies, and a family destroyed in one terrifying instant.

Seventeen-year-old Lies wakes up to find that her mother’s bed hasn’t been slept in. Her car is parked outside. And her purse and cell phone are still by the front door. After twenty-four hours, when every possible explanation is exhausted, the reality is all too frightening for Lies. Her mother is missing.

Lies’s father and his new girlfriend chalk it up to another attention-seeking stunt. When authorities show little interest in a woman who likely walked away from her old life in favor of a new one, Lies is compelled to investigate on her own. But why would her mother abandon Lies and her younger brother? Why would her mother scrub her laptop before disappearing? And who are the strangers on her mother’s phone?

Growing more desperate with each disturbing day, Lies uncovers secrets that turn her world upside down. Nothing will stop her from getting to the truth. No matter how shocking it may be.

3) Natalja's Stories by Inger Christensen to be published on the 6th of May 2025. Denmark - Russia. 96 pages.

A brilliant, elegant, and playful novella newly in English by “one of Denmark’s most honored poets” (Publishers Weekly)

Known primarily for her poetry, Inger Christensen (1935-2009) remains one of Denmark’s most distinguished and original authors. Natalja’s Stories, modeled after Boccaccio’s Decameron, takes an usual approach to the theme of migration by focusing on the shifting ground of meaning itself. It is a tale told to the narrator by her grandmother―about her mother, "abducted" by a Russian from Copenhagen: taken to Russia, she tries to flee the Revolution; she dies and her ashes are carried back to Denmark. But the story is told and retold in marvelous ways, digressing playfully (often hilariously), and involving murders and absurd characters, with wonderful repeating motifs and passages. Natalja’s Stories springs surprise after surprise, and as one Danish critic put it: “instead of a conventional heartbreaking story of loss and disaster, the book appears as a tantalizing account of a character seizing the moment, leaving the past behind, and becoming someone else―offering, in fact, a deconstruction of the usual take on migrant fate as a tragic narrative.”

4) Kings of Stone and Ice: An action-packed, unputdownable Viking adventure by S.J.A. Turney to be published on there 8th of May 2025. Viking. 396 pages.

A thrilling quest for the throne of Norway and, at long last, revenge… After years of voyaging around the world, the Wolves of Odin are going home. Far from the green crew led by an unblooded, wily lad that departed Sigtun, they return a renowned, feared war-band, led by Jarl Halfdan Loki-Born. They have come back to hunt down the last man responsible for the death of Halfdan’s father, the wicked Christian priest Hjalmvigi.

But upon sailing into harbour, they see a familiar sight at the their first ship, Sea Wolf. Its thief, the legendary Harald Hardrada – last seen escaping Constantinople with a hold full of treasure – can’t be far away.

He isn’t. They quickly find him planning his next grand seizing the throne of Norway from its king, Magnus. And he needs the help of a renowned, feared war-band…

A gripping Viking adventure packed with political intrigues and battles, perfect for fans of Giles Kristian.

5) The Minotaur Sampler, Volume 16: New Books to Make Your Heart Race by Cathy Pegau to be published on the 13th of May 2025. Various Authors. 148 pages.

Looking for a new book that will make your heart race? The sixteenth edition of The Minotaur Sampler compiles the beginnings of four can't-miss novels publishing September 2025 for free and easy sampling.

Cathy Pegau's A Murderous Business is a compelling mystery about two women in turn-of-the-century New York solving murder and fighting the heteropatriarchy.

The Girl in the Jade Green Dress by Mariah Fredericks is an evocative mystery about the 1920 murder of the gambler Joseph Elwell, featuring New Yorker writer Morris Markey and Zelda Fitzgerald.

Hank Phillippi Ryan's All This Could Be Yours follows a debut author sent on an exciting book tour where she discovers she's attracted a dangerous stalker set out to ruin her career and family. All because of a Faustian bargain she hadn't realized she'd made.

The Mysterious Case of the Missing Crime Writer by Ragnar Jónasson is the next golden-age-style mystery where a bestselling crime writer goes missing and a young detective must solve it before it's leaked to the press.

6) Death on the Island by Eliza Reid to be published on the 13th of May 2025. Iceland. 336 pages.

Trapped on a remote island by a howling storm, nine people sit down to dinner.

One of them is about to die.

A group of international players has gathered in a tiny village off the coast of Iceland for a diplomatic dinner. There's Kristján, the mayor reeling from a personal tragedy. Graeme, the ambassador with an agenda to push. Jane, his wife, along for the ride on another one of her husband's many business trips. And several others, from Iceland and from abroad, each with their own reason for being there, their own loyalties and grievances. By the end of the night, one of them will be dead. And it will be up to the ambassador's wife, Jane, to figure out how—and why.

What Jane soon comes to realize is that small communities can be the most dangerous of them all… and no one in their group is safe. With secrets around every corner and violent weather trapping the finite list of suspects together on the island, this locked-room mystery by internationally bestselling author Eliza Reid brings Agatha Christie and Nordic noir together in a brand-new twist.

7) My Friends by Fredrik Backman to be published on the 20th of May 2025. Sweden. 448 pages.

#1 New York Times bestselling author Fredrik Backman returns with an unforgettably funny, deeply moving tale of four teenagers whose friendship creates a bond so powerful that it changes a stranger’s life twenty-five years later.

Most people don’t even notice them—three tiny figures sitting at the end of a long pier in the corner of one of the most famous paintings in the world. Most people think it’s just a depiction of the sea. But Louisa, an artist herself, knows otherwise and she is determined to find out the story of these three enigmatic figures.

Twenty-five years earlier, in a distant town, a group of teenagers find refuge from their difficult home lives by spending their days laughing and telling stories out on a pier. There’s Joar, who never backs down from a fight; quiet and bookish Ted who is mourning his father; Ali, the daughter of a man who never stays in one place for long; and finally, there’s the artist, a boy who hoards sleeping pills and shuns attention, but who possesses an extraordinary gift that might be his ticket to a better life. These four lost souls find in each other a reason to get up each morning, a reason to dream.

Out of that summer emerges a transcendent work of art, a painting that will unexpectedly be put into eighteen-year-old Louisa’s care. As she struggles to decide what to do with this bequest, she embarks on a surprise-filled cross-country journey to learn the story of how the painting came to be. The closer she gets to the painting’s birthplace, the more she feels compelled to unleash her own artistic spirit, but happy endings don’t always take the form we expect in this fresh testament to the transformative power of friendship and art.

8) The Viking's Royal Temptation by Roxy Harper to be published on the 22nd of May 2025. Turkey. 272 pages.

Enjoy this thrilling debut Viking romance from Roxy Harper.

Duty vs. desire…

Which will win?

Princess and healer Theadora doesn’t flinch at the sight of armed soldiers. Yet when another uprising threatens to disturb Constantinople’s peace, and Varangian guard Erik bursts into her sanitorium, she’s stunned by her body’s immediate reaction to the rugged Viking…

After the tragic loss of his family, Erik vowed to never love again. So he refuses to let his inconvenient attraction to Thea distract him from his duty: escorting her to marry the king of Macedonia.
If Thea doesn’t wed, her people will suffer, so can the star-crossed lovers fight their feelings, as well as their enemies?

9) Cold Legacy by L.T. Ryan to be published on the 30th of May 2025. Sweden.

A Killer Lurks in Stockholm’s Shadows—And So Does an FBI Agent with Nothing Left to Lose

FBI Agent Avril Dahl thought she could leave her past behind. But when a prominent CEO is murdered in Stockholm, her fragile peace is shattered. Known for her relentless pursuit of justice, Avril is recruited to infiltrate an eco-activist group suspected of turning to violence—and agrees, hoping to find a new purpose in the shadows.

Drawn into the group’s world of radical activism, Avril is torn between her duty and a dark fascination with their cause. The line between ally and enemy blurs, and as the body count rises, so do the stakes. With loyalties shifting around her, Avril realizes that uncovering the truth might not just end her career—it could destroy everything she’s come to care about.

In Cold Legacy, readers journey into Scandinavia’s hidden underworld in a suspense-filled exploration of loyalty, deception, and the fine line between justice and revenge.

This gripping tale pushes one woman to confront her darkest instincts—or risk becoming the very thing she hunts.

10) Painter: A chilling new Nordic Noir series from the author of The Find by Venezia Miller to be published on the 1st of May 2025. Sweden. 263 pages.

From the author of The Find series comes PAINTER, the first book in the gripping new nordic noir series, The Stockholm Killings.

In the frozen heart of a Stockholm winter, a new terror stalks the night. Families are being slaughtered, their bodies arranged in grotesque parodies of classical art—horrific masterpieces staged for Inspector Stefan Eklund to find. Haunted by his own past traumas, Eklund is thrust into leading a new elite unit, partnered with the sharp, ambitious Delara Holm and the unsettlingly brilliant forensic psychologist, Dr. Torre Nylander.

Their only lead is a man found drifting near a desolate lake, covered in blood that isn't his, his memory wiped clean. Is he the sole survivor of the killer's twisted game, or the architect of his family's demise hiding behind a fractured mind?

As Eklund’s team delves deeper, they uncover connections to disturbing artworks and a killer who views murder as creation. But the case forces Stefan to confront the very demons he’s tried to bury. Can he decipher the killer’s macabre gallery of death before becoming consumed by his own darkness, and before another family becomes the next exhibit?

11) THE DARK SIDE OF SWEDEN 2 be Behar Galica to be published on the 3rd of May 2025. Sweden. 133 pages.

In the quiet town of Ale Kommun , nestled deep within southwestern Sweden, a freelance writer takes a part-time job as a student assistant at the mysterious Arosenius School (Arosseniusskolan) What begins as a temporary gig quickly turns into a descent into darkness, as the writer stumbles upon a chilling secret—a hidden network operating within the education system, stretching far beyond the borders of Sweden.
At the center of the story is a suspicious figure known among staff as "Loose Jonas," Jonas Bergqvist, a resource teacher with unsettling habits. Alongside his peculiar colleagues—Markus Agebjörn ,a nervous man from Vimmerby and Jakob Koskel, a military enthusiast with a fear of world leaders like Trump and especially Putin, they seem like an odd bunch. But things take a darker turn when Jonas Bergqvist is repeatedly seen sneaking into the school’s restrooms under highly suspicious circumstances. Touching small girls.
When the writer is suddenly accused by school leadership of recording colleagues, it becomes clear that someone is trying to silence him. His instincts as an investigative journalist kick in. Digging deeper, he uncovers a disturbing trail—connections to a criminal pedo -ring originating in the Balkans, tied to the infamous Devolli brothers,Blerim Devolli and Shkelqim Devolli.
A dark web of silence surrounds the school leadership and even reaches into the local government. Whispers of inappropriate after-hours gatherings with select students raise further alarm. As the web tightens, the writer realizes he's not just exposing corruption—he’s stepping into a dangerous shadow world where silence is survival, and the truth is buried deep beneath layers of fear, bureaucracy, and denial.
This is not just a story about one school. It’s a reflection of the cracks in a society that prides itself on transparency and justice. It’s a chilling behind every smiling facade, there may be a dark side. Welcome to the Dark Side of Sweden. Based on true events.

12) The Betrayed: A Nordic Noir Police Procedural by VM Larsson to be published on the 28th of May 2025. Sweden. 239 pages.

When everything has a price, are you willing to pay?
A boat slows off the Friland Islands in the North Sea. The transponder goes dark as a man drifts off to sleep in his car on deck. A hand signals the all-clear, and metal meets water. During a routine training dive near the oil platform, divers stumble upon a chilling discovery: a body strapped in a Ferrari at a depth of twenty-five meters. Forensic Technician Moa Bakke and her team are called to the scene as newly appointed Detective Inspector Fredrik Dal eagerly begins his first day on the job.

A chilling crime wave shakes the once-peaceful North Sea community to its core. As the investigation deepens, friendships fracture, loyalties are tested, and it becomes clear that everything—even life itself—has a price.

Set on a fictional group of Swedish islands in the North Sea, this novel immerses you in a chilling Nordic Noir experience. The books in the Friland Murders series can be read as standalones.

13) Black Hollow Mansion: Terror Mansion by Mikael Ahlström to be published on the 11th of May 2025. Sweden. 61 pages.

It is the mansion of absolute darkness. Whoever enters never comes out. That is what the legend says. But there are a few who have survived. None of them have told their stories. But now it will come to light.

14) A Curse Carved in Bone by Danielle L. Jensen to be published on the 13th of May 2025. Viking. 403 pages.

A shield maiden fights to break the shackles of prophecy—and to overcome the betrayal of the man who broke her heart—in this searing conclusion to the Norse-inspired fantasy romance duology that began with the bestselling A Fate Inked in Blood.

The secret of her divine heritage revealed, Freya finds herself on a path that will see thousands of lives lost to the magic in her blood. Desperate to avoid this dark fate, she risks an alliance with Skaland’s greatest enemy to seek answers from the seer who foretold her future—the same seer who sent Bjorn to kill her.

While Freya still seethes with rage over Bjorn’s betrayal, the blood oaths that bind her demand that she keep him close as she hunts for a way to avert the looming war. Her magic draws her to the front lines of an old enmity, embroiling her with Nordeland’s Unfated—children of the gods who serve the king she was raised to fear. The same king who, unlike Bjorn, is now willing to fight at her back. For despite the desire that burns hot between Bjorn and Freya, his growing distrust of her chosen path threatens to drag them further apart.

As war approaches, gods and mortals must choose their weapons. Yet the fiercest battle will be the one Freya wages within herself. With the magic of two goddesses burning in her veins, she must weave the threads of destiny to decide her own fate: Will she be the shield that protects her people or the curse that destroys them?