English Translations of Scandinavian/Nordic Mysteries & Thrillers discussion

For the month of May 2026 we presently have 11 books to choose from at present. We will add books as they become known to us. Good Reading.

1) The Distinctly Competent District Councillor by Jonas Jonasson to be published on the 5th of May 2026. Sweden. 144 pages.

The charming and original story of a small, declining community's struggle to survive in the shadow of the all-consuming metropolis, from the multi-million copy bestselling author of The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared .

All over the world, people sleep blissfully in cosiest of Traumbett beds, made in Hamburg. They've successfully cornered the market everywhere except Sweden, which is why the new owner, Konrad Kaltenbacher Jr, is desperate to expand there.

Seeing an opportunity to attract 800 new jobs back to her small, decaying town of Halstaholm, new district councillor Julia Bäck jumps right into spearheading a persuasive campaign with an unprecedented charm offensive to win the contract over Stockholm. A roundabout is hastily renamed in honor of Angela Merkel and adorned with black, red, and gold flowers; a German school is quickly established under the leadership of three elderly pensioners; and the town swimming pool is rapidly transformed into a beerhouse – it had been empty for years anyway!

Julia's tenacity impresses the German dream bed boss Konrad Jr… but has she bitten off more than she can chew?

2) Hidden in Lies by Viveca Sten to be published on the 5th of May 2026. Sweden. 447 pages.

The suspicious death of a university student at the Åre ski resort exposes secrets and lies among friends in a novel of chilling suspense by the acclaimed author of Hidden in Memories.

On a Friday in Åre, six university students arrive for a week of skiing and partying. By Sunday morning only five are alive. The body of their friend Filippa is found in the brutally cold outdoors, showing no signs of assault. It’s as if the barefoot young woman just curled up in a snowdrift to die.

It appears to be a tragic misfortune. And Detective Inspectors Hanna Ahlander and Daniel Lindskog, both at turning points in their personal lives, aren’t anxious to get involved. But Hanna can’t ignore her gut instinct. This is no accident. This is another murder in Åre. Filippa’s best friend, Olivia, has her suspicions too. But who among her tight-knit clique was the last to see Filippa alive?

As, one by one, the friends are pitted against each other, another crime rocks the resort. For Hanna and Daniel, it’s a race against time to separate the truth from the lies, before someone else dies.

3) Out of the Darkness: Classic Short Fiction from Sweden by Vendela Vida to be published on the 5th of May 2026. Sweden. 184 pages.

A treasure chest of stories by Swedish authors from the 1880s to the 1950s, many appearing for the first time in English

In the late nineteenth century, Swedish romanticism gave way to vibrant new literary styles that flourished through the 1950s. Out of the Darkness is the first anthology to bring the short fiction of this golden age of Swedish literature to English readers, celebrating the country’s rich literary tradition and several of its most renowned authors. The stories in this volume (many in entirely new translations, and most never before published in English) reflect the arc of the short story in Sweden, from realism to symbolism to modernist experimentation, and stand as lyrical exemplars of the creativity and depth of Swedish literature.

Some stories explore themes of crime and refuge, others ask what makes life meaningful, and some challenge sexual and social constructs of their time. All are fueled by shadows—of evil, madness, or fate, eerie fantasy or grim reality. Including internationally famous authors like August Strindberg, Stig Dagerman, and Nobel laureate Selma Lagerlöf, Out of the Darkness also features writing by influential women such as Victoria Benedictsson and Agnes von Krusenstjerna, who are less familiar to English readers. A showcase of stylistic virtuosity and incisive social commentary, Out of the Darkness at last brings this remarkable period of Swedish prose into the light.

Contributors: Victoria Benedictsson, Hjalmar Bergman, Karin Boye, Stig Dagerman, Thorsten Jonsson, Agnes von Krusenstjerna, Selma Lagerlöf, August Strindberg, Hjalmar Söderberg.

4) Into The Dark by Ørjan Karlsson to be published on the 5th of May 2026. Norway. 373 pages.

When a mutilated body surfaces and a woman dies mysteriously, Jakob Weber uncovers a chilling trail through Norway's wild north. SECOND in a darkly addictive Nordic Noir series.

In Norway's far north, something unspeakable is surfacing…

When a mutilated body rises from the icy waters off the jetty in Kjerringøy, it shocks the quiet coastal village – and stirs something darker beneath. Not long after, a young woman is found dead in a drab Bodø apartment. Suicide, perhaps. Or something far more sinister.

Detective Jakob Weber and former national investigator Noora Yun Sande are drawn into both cases. Then a hiker reports a terrifying encounter in the nearby a solitary cabin … and a man without a face.

As the investigation deepens, the clues grow more disturbing – and the wild, wintry landscape closes in. Jakob is certain of one if they don't find the killer soon, he'll strike again.

SECOND in the dark, addictive Nordic Noir series set in Norway's unforgiving Arctic north.

`Expertly written, compelling and impossible to put down. This is perfect Scandi Noir. I'm hooked´ Michael Wood

`This superb Scandi thriller is the perfect antidote to the plague of tweeness that infects so much crime fiction today´ Mark Sanderson, The Times

`A must-read series´ Nordic Watchlist

5) A Shield Maiden’s Earl: Scottish Fantasy Historical Romance by Sky Purington to be published on the 9th of May 2026. Viking. 205 pages.

When a fierce shield-maiden touched by the Valkyries is forced to marry a powerful Norwegian earl, fiery passion ignites, and destiny unfolds.

Born of seers and Vikings of old, I never could have imagined my father someday ordering me to hand over my shield and blade to the man he made me wed. Nor could I have fathomed that man would be Earl Soren Dahl. A warrior chieftain known for his battle prowess and incredible feats, who has long wanted me. When he arrives on my shores to claim me, I expect to despise him, yet he sets my blood afire. More telling, my mystical talisman claims we are fated.

From the moment I laid eyes on Freya Helvig, as a child, I knew she would someday be mine. Though it took years of making a name for myself and building my tribe into one of the most formidable strongholds in the Kingdom of Norway, I finally claimed her. Or at least I tried. My beautiful, feisty bride-to-be is a force to be reckoned with. A force I welcome, ready to go to battle and conquer her heart, no matter what it takes.

Brought together by the Norns, Freya and Soren navigate the ever-changing landscape of thirteenth-century Scandinavia, amid love and destiny. Brought together and torn apart by the whims of magic and mortal men, by King Hákon and the Battle of Largs, ushering in the beginning of the end of Norse rule over Scotland. Will Freya and Soren be lost to each other in the end? Or will they survive all that’s determined to separate them?

Tropes You'll Arranged MarriageWarrior Heroine / Shield-MaidenFated Mates / DestinyAlpha Warrior HeroEnemies-to-Lovers VibesMarriage of Duty Becoming LoveEpic Love Amid War
Read in Kindle Unlimited!

6) Vilhelm's Room by Tove Ditlevsen to be published on the 12th of May 2026. Denmark. 147 pages.

I want to write a book about Vilhelm’s room and the events which took place in it, or arose from it; those that led to Lise’s death, which I have survived only so that I might write down the story of her and Vilhelm...

The ripples from a breakup radiate outwards from the room where a married couple once loved each other, and a bizarre Lonely Hearts advert sets off a train of tragicomic events that lead to an inevitable conclusion. Tove Ditlevsen’s final novel – published a year before her suicide in 1976 – is a masterful conclusion to a great work of a blackly funny and devastating tour-de-force that pulses with life even as it journeys towards death.

7) Trollheim: Tale of Sýstir by Georgia Summers to be published on the 19th of May 2026. Nordic. 288 pages.

When their mother is burned at the stake, Syìstir and Ada have two run or die. For fans of The Ten Thousand Doors of January and Circe, this lyrical tale of magical realism rooted in Nordic folklore is written by a no.1 Sunday Times bestselling author.

Young Sýstir's world is small and seemingly quiet, but shrouded in secrets. Outside of the cottage where she lives with her beloved mother and adored older sister, lurks the constant danger of being discovered by the villagers for what she truly unwanted, dangerous, Huldra. When their mother is accused of being a witch and dragged to the stake, the sisters must run for their lives.

Sýstir finds herself alone in the Dark Forest that she later comes to know as Trollheim - a magical realm for mythical beings and a sanctuary for those with nowhere left to turn. Here she finds a kindred spirit in the rogue Troll Agagkantor who takes her in and encourages her to live life as her true self, to understand and use the powers she has been hiding away. However, Agagkantor carries secrets of his own and Sýstir comes to realize that her loyalty might have been misplaced. In the end she has no other choice but to sacrifice everything in order to protect that which matters most - her home.

8) The Temptation of Charlotte North by Camilla Bruce to be published on the 19th of May 2026. Norway. 448 pages.

A rebellious young woman desperate to escape her predetermined life joins forces with an unlikely ally—a sinister spirit—in this dark gothic fantasy from the acclaimed author of At the Bottom of the Garden .

Be careful what you wish for. It might come true....

In 1910, on a small, remote island that boasts more sheep than people, life does not hold a lot of promise for spirited Charlotte North. Her only escape from both this insular community and a family who does not understand her seems to be through marriage—an institution she is not at all eager to join, given the unhappiness of her parents' own union. Plus, eligible suitors are few and far between, which is why Charlotte has fallen hard for one the few outsiders to join their community in recent the handsome—and likewise unhappily married—new priest.

And then an ancient tower once rumored to have imprisoned a witch—or an unfaithful wife—crumbles, and releases . . . something. A restless spirit that knocks inside the walls and sends household objects flying. A spirit that seems to have an affinity for Charlotte herself. Though many on the island are terrified of this new interloper, Charlotte sees in it potential. Power. And perhaps even a way to get everything she has most wanted out of life.

9) Under the Blazing Sun by Jenny Lund Madsen to be published on the 21st of May 2026. Denmark (Italy). 300 pages.

Hannah is miserable. Her love life is in ruins, her contract demands a sequel to her bestselling crime debut – and she's out of ideas. After a mortifying TV interview, her agent ships her off to a sun-drenched Sicilian villa with a simple finish the book. No distractions. No excuses.

But inspiration doesn't strike – murder does.

When a night out ends in murder, Hannah finds herself at the centre of a murder investigation … again. The police want her out of the way, and the only person who seems to believe her is a young but charming Italian police officer. That is, until she doesn't.

Soon Hannah is chasing suspects, fleeing crime scenes, and doing whatever it takes to avoid becoming the next victim. She came to write a crime novel. Now she's trapped inside one.

Dark, sly and deliciously atmospheric, Under the Blazing Sun is the second novel in the award-winning series featuring accidental sleuth and disgruntled literary author Hannah, whose pursuit of plot twists keeps turning dangerously real.

10) Dead Weight by Hildur Knútsdóttir to be published on the 26th of May 2026. Iceland. 160 pages.

An Icelandic night may hide secrets and affairs—or even bodies—in this gruesomely cathartic horror thriller from the author of The Night Guest.

Unnur was living a normal, if lonely, life until a black cat showed up at her door.

Trying to do the right thing, Unnur reunites the lost pet with its owner—a young woman named Ásta who is in desperate need of some help. Unnur reluctantly agrees to take in the cat until Ásta is able to care for it again herself.

Soon, Ásta becomes a fixture in Unnur's life and the two form an unlikely friendship. But like a black cat, trouble is tailing Ásta, and Unnur is the only one there when things take a violent turn.

Nothing tests a friendship like blood on your hands.

11) The Secrets from the Deep by Satu Rämö to be published on the 28th of May 2026. 333 pages.

1995: A young German woman disappears in the Westfjords of Iceland, but the case is quickly forgotten. After all, it's not uncommon for foreigners who come to Iceland to vanish, and the police are too busy investigating a fatal car accident, recovering two bodies from the cold waters of the sea.

2022: Detective Hildur Rúnarsdóttir returns from a surfing holiday in Hawaii to a good life. The renovation of her childhood home is progressing, and her colleague and friend Jakob Johanson has permanently joined her in Iceland. But when Hildur visits her family friend, Helga, in a nursing home, she is presented with surprising new details about her mother, Rakel. Then a cruise ship carrying a large group of tourists arrives in Ísafjörður, bringing a world of trouble with them.

As the bodies pile up, Hildur and Jakob must look to the past to figure out what lies in front of them.

Translated by Kristian London

12) The Chosen: A Nordic Noir Police Procedural by V.M. Larsson to be published on the 28th of May 2026. Sweden. 208 pages.

Who will be next?
An early morning winter swim in Visby marina turns into a nightmare when DI Lottie Lind collides with something frozen beneath the ice, a severed body part. As the search for the remaining pieces begins, the case takes a darker turn. Before the marina has even been fully swept, another body is found in a nature reserve, leaving no doubt that Gotland is dealing with something far more sinister.

Filip Ek, a former police officer returning to Gotland after years abroad, is drawn into the investigation. Still haunted by his past, he finds himself working alongside Lottie as the team grapples with a troubling pattern: a series of unresolved suicides among young women, cold cases that suddenly feel anything but isolated. Could they be linked to the recent deaths?

As fragments begin to align, Visby’s postcard tranquillity gives way to a tense game of cat and mouse with a serial killer who moves unseen through the close-knit community. It’s not what you are it’s who you are. As Lottie prepares to leave the island and Filip is forced to remain, both must confront the choices that brought them here. In a place where everyone knows everyone, and secrets never stay buried, Lottie and Filip must decide what home truly means: the place they yearn for, or the responsibility they cannot escape.

Set on the Swedish island of Gotland in the Baltic Sea, this police procedural immerses you in a chilling Nordic noir experience. The books in the Gotland Murders series can be read as standalones.

13) The Circle: A Nordic Noir Police Procedural by V.M. Larsson to be published on the 28th of May 2026. Sweden.

What lies beneath the perfect surface?When a beloved local historian and TV presenter is found dead in the Visborg ruins – her eyes and mouth sawn shut – the peaceful medieval town of Visby is shaken to its core.


As DI Lottie Lind and civilian investigator Filip Ek delve deeper, they uncover long-buried secrets dating back centuries, exposing the dark side of a community that hides its sins beneath cobblestones and church spires. Here, nothing resembles the unity of a Masonic-like brotherhood – loyalties fracture, alliances shift, and silence becomes the only bond holding the town together.

As the investigation advances, Lottie and Filip uncover links to the death of Lottie’s daughter five years earlier. What was believed to be a tragic accident may have deeper roots – ghosts from the past that refuse to stay buried. Was it ever an accident? Meanwhile, Filip is haunted by a true crime journalist digging into his past, placing the pair under more strain than ever before.

Set on the Swedish island of Gotland in the Baltic Sea, this police procedural immerses you in a chilling Nordic noir experience. The books in the Gotland Murders series can be read as standalones.

14) Confessions of a Female Dominant: A Mother. A Mistress. A Woman no one really sees. by Ana from Sweden tp be published on the 5th of May 2026. Sweden. 290 pages.

CW: This book involves graphic sex scenes in a dark, seedy BDSM world. Some readers might be offended by disturbing scenes and language.

Ana has mastered the art of being useful — to everyone but herself. A perfect mother, a professional, a survivor of systems both domestic and corporate—she moves through life with precision, order, and quiet endurance. But beneath the structure lies a hunger she cannot name.

When she meets Gabriel, a man who offers submission instead of love, Ana steps into a world that mirrors her own contradictions: power as refuge, desire as exposure, control as the last defense against grief. Their bond unravels the fictions she has lived by—about dominance, love, and the cost of being needed by everyone yet wanted by no one.

Set between Stockholm’s sterile offices and the clandestine rooms of the Berlin BDSM underground, Confessions of a Female Dominant isn't a story that heals; it is an unflinching chronicle of solitude, identity, and the architectures of power we build to survive intimacy.

15) The Care of The State: A Nordic Noir Novel of Institutional Failure by Axel Nors to be published on the 2nd of May 2026. Denmark. 292 pages.

From the author of All The Good We Did and The Compliance Record comes a cold, precise Nordic Noir about a life the system was designed to protect — and quietly failed.

When detective Lærke Skov is assigned the file of Naja Olsen — twenty-three years old, found dead in her transitional housing room in Copenhagen — it comes to her as a formality. A young woman. No suspicious circumstances. Confirm and close.

But the file is too tidy. And a reference number leads somewhere it shouldn't.

What Lærke uncovers is not a crime in the conventional sense. It is something harder to name: a life systematically dismantled by a child welfare system that processed Naja as a caseload metric rather than a person. Seven placements between age nine and eighteen. One that worked, ended not because it was failing but because a municipal authority needed to reduce its open caseload before a quarterly performance review. And at the end of a long chain of procedurally correct decisions, a senior civil servant who designed the framework, signed the guidance document, and never once read her file.

The facts are discoverable. The chain of causation is provable. Whether any of it constitutes something a prosecutor will act on is a different question — and The Care of the State does not pretend otherwise.

Naja Olsen was funny. She did impressions of social workers. She kept a cactus on her windowsill and sent herself postcards from places she visited, addressed to be collected when she arrived somewhere permanent.

She never arrived.

Perfect for readers of Karin Fossum, Henning Mankell, and Jussi Adler-Olsen, The Care of the State is Nordic Noir at its most precise: a procedural investigation into institutional failure, the specific grief of a life the state could not see, and the cost of continuing to look when the system would prefer you stopped.

Ken wrote: "4) Into The Dark by Ørjan Karlsson to be published on the 5th of May 2026. Norway. 373 p..."

Agree ….Really enjoyed the first two I found translated. Looking forward to the rest of the series. Page turners….. I found that he seems to have changed his author name, so it pays to double search.
Into Thin Air, Jakob Weber #1 of 4, Ørjan Nordhus Karlsson, translator Ian Giles, 2025 iBook 7,99. 15/4/2026. 4/5.
Into The Dark, #2 of 4, Ørjan Nordhus Karlsson, translator Ian Giles, 2026 iBook 7,99. 21/4/2026. 5/5.

17) Salt and Ash: A Nordic Noir Mystery of Buried Secrets / Faroese Island Crime Thriller by Vesper Kade to be published on the 1st of May 2026. Faroe Islands. 262 pages.

When retired detective Iona MacRae returns to the Faroe Islands for her mother’s final days, she expects grief, silence, and the old ghosts of the home she fled thirty-one years ago.

Instead, she finds a murder.

At a remote lighthouse on the edge of the Atlantic, a man is found dead beside three carefully arranged objects: a bowl of salt, a scatter of ash, and a single strand of red wool. To the local police, the scene is disturbing. To Iona, it is impossible.

She has seen this signature before.

Years earlier in Glasgow, the same ritual marked a string of unsolved killings that ended her career and left her haunted by failure. Now the pattern has followed her home, or perhaps it began there all along.

As a storm closes around the islands, Iona is pulled into a case that ties the present murder to her brother’s disappearance, her mother’s secrets, and a buried truth the village has protected for decades.

On these islands, the sea keeps its dead.

But not forever.

Salt & Ash is an atmospheric Nordic noir crime thriller about grief, memory, ritual murder, and the secrets that survive in isolated places.

18) Stop Dead: The dark, chilling new instalment in the addictive Iceland Mysteries series… by Katrín Júlíusdóttir to be published on the 21st of May 2026. Iceland. 285 pages.

Thousands of runners
One killer

Icelandic detective-in-training Sigurdís is studying criminal psychology in the USA, but her plans are thrown into disarray when she discovers that her boss and mentor, Garðar, has been put on leave from Reykjavík CID as a result of his investigation into Sigurdís's father's death.

Returning to Iceland to deal with the fallout, Sigurdís finds herself pulled into a disturbing case: controversial TV personality Olga Einarsdóttir has been stabbed to death during the Reykjavík Marathon. Struggling to locate a runner wearing bib number 1407, who was seen near the murdered woman during the race, the police soon discover that several masked runners were wearing the same number.

As the mystery deepens, Sigurdís and her fellow detective Unnar soon learn exactly how unpopular Olga was – not just with the interviewees she humiliated on live TV, but with her own son, her business partner, a widower who insists that she had a hand in his wife's death, and her ex-husband, who died in suspicious circumstances thirty years ago…

As her exploration into Olga's past becomes ever darker and more harrowing, Sigurdís must also face the truth about her own father, while searching for an attacker who will go to any lengths to cover up their crimes…

The Retribution by M. P. Roberts to be published on the 17th of May 2026. Sweden. 337 pages.

Sam Palmer is a double murderer. At least the evidence at the crime scene in his villa points to no other conclusion at first glance. But did the department store mogul really shoot his best friends Ian and Madeleine Cooper during a dinner party? The investigation leads Detective Chief Inspector Henry Taylor, Sergeant Patricia Duncan, and his new constable, Geoffrey Holmes, all the way to Sweden. There, Ian Cooper is being investigated not only for alcohol smuggling. Is the whisky producer also responsible for the death of Swedish police officer Bengt Olufson? That's what Palmer's wife Isabel believes—she had an affair with Olufson. When the investigation stalls, it doesn't help matters that Patricia Duncan and Geoffrey Holmes already know each other and are anything but harmonious working partners. On top of that, Taylor is confronted with two more deaths that touch his private life. Julia Whitfield, his son Felix's girlfriend, witnesses her parents collapse and die in a restaurant. An accident? Or an attack? And what connection exists between all these cases?

20) Swampland: Prehistoric Action and Adventure by Christoffer Petersen to be published on the 14th of May 2026. Prehistoric. 71 pages.

When a stranger with a pocketful of cash comes to town, looking for a guide to take him deep into the Shillton Swamp, Jim Balustrade is loathe to agree, until, that is, the man buys him one of Deloris’ chicken baskets at the Bug Bar.

Swampland is a novella-length read full of prehistoric action and adventure, closely tied to Christoffer Petersen’s novel: Reviver.