Come summertime — whether you’re lounging on a beach, sitting lakeside, or sunk into a lawn chair in your backyard — there’s nothing quite like getting lost in a crime thriller. And ever since Stieg Larsson’s made it big stateside, writers from Scandinavia, Finland, and Iceland — with their Ö’s and Ø’s — have become prime exports, translated and delivered to hands eager to read about gruesome crimes we can’t look away from. Nordic crime writing often excels at a variety of common elements that make for great page-turning thrillers: flawed top-of-their-game detectives, twisted serial killers, deft plotting, and a particular love of red herrings to leave readers guessing whodunit. Most of all, the best of Nordic crime fiction offer stories with the kind of momentum that leaves you listening for hours — often at the expense of a good night’s sleep or your skin left too long in the summer heat without sunscreen. Here are seven novels that should do just that.
From Denmark's “Queen of Crime,” this novel by Sarah Blaedel begins almost inconspicuously: In a forest, police discover the body of a woman who succumbed to injuries from a fall. But when detective Louise Rick puts out a call to ID the woman based on distinct burn scars on her face, a potentially more sinister story begins to reveal itself. While Blaedel doesn’t dabble in character development as much as some of her Nordic compatriots, she does illustrate the narrative leanness of a lot of Nordic crime fiction, so you probably won’t mind. The plot here is so streamlined you’ll find yourself propelled eagerly through the story, all the while curdling an uneasy apprehension that’ll sit in your gut as the novel barrels through its revelations.
Norwegian Samuel Bjørk wastes no time with his novel. Within the first moments, a young girl is found hanging from a tree. She is dressed up like a doll and has a sign on her that reads “I’m traveling alone.” With that eerie image (and parental nightmare), the novel follows veteran detectives Holger Munch and his gifted (but suicidal) colleague, Mia Krueger, as they pursue a killer who enjoys playing "cat and mouse" and promises more victims to come. Bjørk has a particularly mischievous knack for introducing multiple perspectives and side stories (including one about a strange religious sect) to keep readers guessing where it will all go. That journey makes for a hell of a listen, thanks to the impressive range of tones and character voices narrator Laura Paton lends to the story; the life she brings to Holger and Mia are especially great.
The Swedish author’s novel has a dramatic murder and premise: A beheaded woman is found in a suburban home, and the prime suspect — a CEO — is nowhere to be found. For crime lovers, the novel makes for a welcome mash-up of police procedural (via detectives Peter Lindgren and Manfred Olsson) and killer profiling (via the gifted, but broken Hanne Lagerlind-Schön). There’s even an amateur sleuth in the mix, a woman named Emma, who had an affair with the CEO and is looking for answers. The novel keeps things interesting with chapters that alternate between three of the characters, and even introduces a rare twist in crime fiction — an unreliable narrator in the form of one character wrestling with onset dementia.