There’s been a lot written over the past five years about the burgeoning popularity of Scandinavian mysteries, but where can you find new to you authors? Well, here of course. Many of us have read Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy and are familiar with Jo Nesbo, Henning Mankell, and Karin Fossum, and with these names we have only scratched the surface of Scandinavian Crime fiction.
For starters let’s look at Anne Holt a Norwegian lawyer and former Minister of Justice. Holt started the Hanne Wilhelmsen series in 1993 with Blind Goddess, the series first came to North America with 1222 (the eighth book in the series) in 2012. This is not unlike Jo Nesbo’s Harry Hole series that was also picked up by a North American publisher part way into the series. Subsequently both these authors have had their entire series released in North America so you can start from the beginning. Other Norwegian authors to check out include: Karin Fossum and Thomas Enger.
Moving from Norway to Iceland we find Yrsa Sigurdardottir writing the Thora Gudmundsdottir series. As with Holt’s Hanne Wilhelmsen we are presented with a strong female character. Thora is a single mother and attorney, in the first novel Last Rituals Thora is tasked with investigating a young man’s death. The police have made an arrest, but the family of the young man are not satisfied that the right person has been apprehended. While there are many more Icelandic crime authors many have not been translated into English. You will also find Arnaldur Indridason in our collection and stay tuned for more Icelandic writing.
We’ll make a quick pit stop in Denmark to visit Jussi Adler-Olsen among others before continuing on. Adler-Olsen was the first Danish crime author that came to my attention with The Keeper of Lost Causes. This first volume in the Department Q series introduces us to Carl Morck, the only one staffing Department Q. Throughout the series Morck works on the coldest of cold cases with fascinating results. Keep an eye out for Leif Davidsen and Christian Jungersen, with hopefully more authors to be translated in the future.
Sweden really seems to dominate the Scandinavian crime writing scene, at least when it comes to authors who have been translated into English. There are of course the aforementioned Stieg Larsson and Henning Mankell as well as Camilla Lackberg, Liza Marklund, Asa Larsson, Ake Edwardson, Lars Kepler, and Kristina Ohlsson. One of the less well known authors from the Swedish camp is Hakan Nesser. Nesser’s Inspector Van Veeteren mysteries combine police procedural and psychological thriller for a truly satisfying read.
Please do not think I’m neglecting the wonderful Finnish crime writers. As it happens most of the Finnish crime fiction we have at the library is in Finnish. This is a great service to our Finnish population, but does present me with a challenge in sharing information about our Finnish crime authors as I cannot read them. The only one I was able to find in our collection and translated into English was Nights of Awe by Harri Nykanen; it is now on my reading list.
I hope you truly enjoy these marvellous authors and the rest of our great crime fiction at your Library.
Ruth Hamlin-Douglas
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