English Translations of Scandinavian/Nordic Mysteries & Thrillers discussion

For the month of July I will be in Austria, Bulgaria and Greece. So I will be busy and can't put things on under July, so now I will with 7 books to choose from. Good Reading.

1) Visions and Temptations by Harald Voetmann to be published on the 1st of July 2025. Germany. 128 pages.

In the eleventh century, in the city of Regensburg, Othlo of St. Emmeram lies on his sickbed and takes a journey through Heaven and Hell


Spurning carnal desire and earthly temptations all his life, the mystic Othlo is now in the care of his brother monks including the odious and semen-filled Wolkbart. Despite the spare walls which surround him, he frolics with Holy Dionysius in the Garden of Head-bearers (each carries his own head for eternity), descends from the island of Heaven, visits a brothel patronized by fallen angels, and witnesses the souls of the once gluttoinous wealthy fighting over scraps of rotting crabmeat in a ditch in Hell.


The third and final book in a series about mankind’s desire to conquer nature, Visions and Temptations follows Awake and Sublunar. In each novel, a great if imperfect mind facesis failed by the inevitable demise of the body.

2) The Great Deception by Syd Moore to be published on the 1st of July 2025. Iceland. 352 pages.

Enter a world of deceivers, age old magic, and a war-torn world from bestselling author Syd Moore

1940. Britain invades a neutral Iceland. Daphne Devine is dropped into occupied territory to track a clairvoyant suspected of collaborating with the Nazis. As an undercover operative Daphne must navigate her way through a strange and alien landscape, where not all visitors are welcomed with open arms. When a new lead takes her North into Strandir, the land of sorcerers, she discovers new threats and is now no longer the hunter, but the hunted. Daphne must use every ounce of cunning and craft to outwit enemy agents...

3) Murder Tide by Stella Blómkvist to be published on the 4th of July 2025. Iceland. 253 pages.

The ruthless businessman left to drown by the rising tide at the dock by Reykjavík’s Grótta lighthouse had never been short of enemies. The police have their suspect, and he calls in Stella Blómkvist to fight his corner as he furiously protests his innocence. Yet this angry fisherman had more reason than many to bear the dead man a grudge.

It’s a busy summer for razor-tongued, no-nonsense lawyer Stella. A young woman looking for a long-lost parent finds more than she bargained for. An old adversary calls from prison, looking for Stella to broker a dangerous deal with the police to put one of the city’s untouchable crime lords behind bars at long last.

Is the mysterious medium right, warning that deep waters are waiting for Stella as well?

4) Home Before Dark by Eva Björg Ægisdóttir to be published on the 17th of July 2025. Iceland. 379 pages.

**WINNER of the Blood Drop Award for Iceland's Best Crime Novel of the Year**

**SHORTLISTED for the Glass Key Award for Best Nordic Crime Novel**

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November, 1967, Iceland. Fourteen-year-old Marsi has a secret penpal – a boy who lives on the other side of the country – but she has been writing to him in her older sister's name. Now she is excited to meet him for the first time.

But when the date arrives, Marsi is prevented from going, and during the night her sister Stína goes missing – her bloodstained anorak later found at the place where Marsibil and her penpal had agreed to meet.

November, 1977. Stína's disappearance remains unsolved. Then an unexpected letter arrives for Marsi. It's from her penpal, and he's still out there…

Desperate for news of her missing sister, but terrified that he might coming after her next, Marsi returns to her hometown and embarks on an investigation of her own.

But Marsi has always had trouble distinguishing her vivid dreams from reality, and as insomnia threatens her sanity, it seems she can't even trust her own memories … and her sister's killer is still on the loose…

Twisty, dark and utterly chilling, Home Before Dark is a breathtakingly accomplished psychological thriller where nothing and no one are what they seem, and smouldering secrets from the past reach into a present where everything is at risk, including Marsi's life……

5) Girl, 1983 by Linn Ullmann to be published on the 22nd of July 2025. Oslo, New York, and Paris. 272 pages.

Called a “masterpiece” (Ali Smith), this stunning novel explores desire and anxiety, beauty and youth, memory and power.

Paris, a winter’s night in 1983. The girl is sixteen years old, lost in unfamiliar streets. On a scrap of paper in her pocket is the address of a photographer, K, thirty years her senior. Almost four decades later, as her life and the world around her begins to unravel, the grown woman seeks to comprehend the young girl of before. Set in Oslo, New York, and Paris, Girl, 1983 is a bravura quest through layers of oblivion that probes the elegiac sway of memory as she looks for ways to disclose a long-guarded secret. A delineation of time and place over the course of a life, this remarkable novel insistently crisscrosses the path of a wayward sixteen-year-old girl lost in Paris. Girl, 1983 is a raw, stark, and haunting exposure of beauty and forgetting, desire and shame, power and powerlessness.

6) Kilpelankangas: by James Mullins to be published on the 26th of July 2025. Finland. 321 pages.

After losing Loytavaara Hill to Task Force Renning, the Soviets fortify a new base at Kilpelankangas, determined to strike back. With an enemy nine times their size bearing down on them, Colonel Siilasvuo’s forces are ordered to hold the hill while mounting a daring assault on the Soviet stronghold.

For sniper Hale, this means venturing deep into hostile territory to scout enemy defenses. But the snowy wilderness offers no sanctuary—each step is shadowed by Viktor Velikanov, a relentless Soviet sniper whose skill and cunning have earned him the nickname “the Wraith.” The forest becomes a battleground of wits, strategy, and survival.

As Hale and his allies uncover the full scope of the Soviet threat, the fate of the hill, the task force, and Finland itself hangs by a thread. Will Pekka’s ragtag fighters find a way to triumph, or will their courage be crushed beneath the Soviet tide?

7) The Vinland Sagas by Anonymous to be published on the 29th of July 2025. North America. 91 pages.

The Saga of the Greenlanders and Eirik the Red’s Saga contain the first ever descriptions of North America, a bountiful land of grapes and vines, discovered by Vikings five centuries before Christopher Columbus. Written down in the early thirteenth century, they recount the Icelandic settlement of Greenland by Eirik the Red, the chance discovery by seafaring adventurers of a mysterious new land, and Eirik’s son Leif the Lucky’s perilous voyages to explore it. Wrecked by storms, stricken by disease and plagued by navigational mishaps, some survived the North Atlantic to pass down this compelling tale of the first Europeans to talk with, trade with, and war with the Native Americans.
Keneva Kunz's meticulous yet highly accessible translation is accompanied by an introduction by Gísli Sigurðsson, which discusses the historical reliability of the two sagas and the geographical placing of Vinland, and builds up a picture of the explorers' likely sea routes to the new world. This edition also contains maps, a family tree and an index of characters, a chronology and suggestions for further reading.

8) I'm back! The Walrus Snatcher: A Greenland Missing Persons short story by Christoffer Petersen to be published on the 11th of July 2025. Greenland.

When a walrus skull with an impressive set of tusks goes missing in the far north of Greenland, it’s up to Constable Petra ‘Piitalaat’ Jensen to find it.

The Walrus Snatcher is a light, quick read connected to Christoffer Petersen’s Greenland Missing Persons series.

Pick up The Walrus Snatcher and join Constable Petra ‘Piitalaat’ Jensen in Greenland today!

9) The Empress and Her Wolf by C.J. Adrien to be published on the 1st of July 2025. Viking. 341 pages.

Power. Revenge. Forbidden love in the heart of a dying empire.

When Viking warlord Hasting arrives at the gates of Constantinople, he knows he can’t conquer it. Not with deeds of arms alone. But fate has other plans.

His failed raid turns into an opportunity: serve Empress Theodora as her sword-for-hire. Hasting quickly proves himself more capable than the generals she no longer trusts. But the empire is a viper’s nest of betrayal, and when an attempt to scare off his men ends in the death of his lover, Hasting’s mission changes.

He came for wealth and glory. Now, he wants blood.

But revenge in Miklagard is no simple feat. The city runs on whispers, not war cries. Enemies hide behind silks and smiles. And as Hasting grows closer to the empress—ally, ruler, and eventually lover—he finds himself torn between love and vengeance.

One wrong move could cost him everything.