Scandinavian Noir

An in-depth and personal exploration of Scandinavian crime fiction as a way into Scandinavian culture at large.

The body of a homeless woman is found in the river, viciously beaten and with all her teeth removed. A young immigrant, the prime suspect in a recent spate of robberies in Umeå, was seen running in the vicinity around the time the body was dumped. Trouble is, he hasn’t been seen since. When he does appear, in the town square, he’s wearing an explosive vest and holding a detonator.

The Bucket List starts when undercover FBI Agent John Adderley wakes up in a hospital bed in Baltimore with extensive gunshot wounds. He knows he’s lucky to be alive. And just a few beds away is the man who 24 hours ago pointed a gun to his head. Soon, a high-profile cold-case file is sent to Agent Adderley, now living in Sweden (where he’s not lived since he was a boy) in witness protection, hiding until he can testify against the drug cartel he infiltrated back in the States. Adderley is determined to solve the case, even with a price on his head....

Two young women are missing in Oslo. Strangers to each other, but last seen at the same party. When the body of one of them is found with fresh stitches along her hairline, the hunt is on to find a murderer with singular compulsions. Catching this criminal calls for a detective with a singular mind: Harry Hole. But Harry is gone: fired from the police force and down and out in Los Angeles. It seems like nothing can entice him back home—until someone close to him comes under threat. Now the clock is ticking, for Harry's friend and for the missing woman.

Seventeen years ago, Criminal Inspector Ewert Grens was called to the scene of a brutal crime. A family had been murdered, and the only survivor - and witness - was the five-year-old daughter. The girl was placed in the witness protection program, and the case went cold, but years later, Grens is still haunted by the seemingly random slaying and the little girl who was spared. So when he learns that the apartment where the crime occurred is now the scene of a mysterious break-in, Grens immediately fears that someone is intent on silencing the only witness.

Bill Olsson, recently widowed, is desperate to provide for his daughter, Sally. Struggling to pay rent, he welcomes a lodger into their home: Karla, a law student and aspiring judge, who works as a housekeeper to make ends meet. Her clients are the Rytters, an incredibly wealthy couple who hide behind closed doors. The wife is ill and hasn’t left the house in months. The husband is controlling and obsessive. Is he just a worried husband, concerned for his wife’s health? Or is there something more sinister at play?

Freelance private detective Thomas "Ravn" Ravnsholdt is attempting to move on with his life following the murder of his girlfriend. But when wealthy business mogul Ferdinand Mesmer enlists his help finding his son, Ravn reluctantly takes on what he thinks will be a straightforward missing person case. A decade ago, Jacob Mesmer founded the mysterious and scandal-scarred religious sect "God's Chosen." Now he's vanished without a trace. As Ravn digs deeper, he discovers the previous private eye assigned to the case has also disappeared. 

Detective Leonore Asker seems to have the leading position at Malmö’s Major Crime Division within reach. But things go awry when, in the middle of a high profile kidnapping case, management relegates her to the so-called Department of Lost Souls—the unit for odd, cold cases banished to the basement of the police station.

Left to her own devices, Detective Sergeant Charlie West struggles with the responsibility of a full-blown murder investigation when a man is pushed off a cliff. Not ready to have her apron strings severed so soon, West finds Munro who reluctantly agrees to shed light on the Ayrshire detectives' most challenging case yet. Once the police have discovered the identity of the dead man, and established his demise was the result of foul play, the race is on to hunt down the murderer.

Police detective Hannah Duncker didn’t expect to return to her native Öland. She fled after her father’s murder conviction and returns to make peace with her shame. She has a new job with the local police and a nosy new partner. A 15-year-old’s death catapults her into a murder investigation that resurrects ghosts from her previous life. As she hunts for the truth, she must confront the people she abandoned. Not all are pleased to see her back home, and she soon learns that digging through the past comes with consequences.

On the day Stockholm police officer Hanna Ahlander’s personal and professional lives crash, she takes refuge at her sister’s lodge in the Swedish ski resort paradise of Åre. But it’s a brief comfort. The entire village is shaken by the sudden vanishing of a local teenage girl. Hanna can’t help but investigate, and while searching for the missing person, she lands a job with the local police department. There she joins forces with Detective Inspector Daniel Lindskog, who has been tasked with finding the girl. Their only lead: a scarf in the snow.

Una wants nothing more than to teach, but she has been unable to secure steady employment in Reykjavík. Her savings are depleted, her love life is nonexistent, and she cannot face another winter staring at the four walls of her shabby apartment. Celebrating Christmas and ringing in 1986 in the remote fishing hamlet of Skálar seems like a small price to pay for a chance to earn some teaching credentials and get her life back on track.

An unbearably tense novel of revenge, murder, bereavement and the destructive force of passion. The single-mother families of the isolated community under the shadow of the Pyderhorn, Bergen's greatest mountain, are being terrorised by a teenage gang. But teenage violence is nothing compared to what awaits detective Varg Veum when he gets to know the blue-eyed Wenche Andersen.

Ida is a self-confessed serial killer of predatory men. She feels no remorse for her victims but has decided she needs psychiatric help...if only to lay the groundwork for an insanity plea if she gets caught. Clarissa is a celebrity psychotherapist, the best in her field, a familiar face on television and in glossy magazines. For her, every patient is special—someone only she can save. When Ida walks into Clarissa's consulting room one day, the therapist doesn't know that they share a dark secret, buried in both their pasts.

Als bei einem Hausbrand in der Kleinstadt Akranes ein junger Mann ums Leben kommt, deutet zunächst alles auf einen tragischen Unglücksfall hin. Auch in Eva Björg Ægisdóttirs drittem Krimi ist nichts so, wie es zunächst scheint, und sie erweist sich einmal mehr als Meisterin der psychologischen Spannungsliteratur.

Harald Uteng, ein pensionierter Kripos-Beamter, arbeitet an einem Podcast über den Mord an der 17-jährigen Malin, die 1991 in der norwegischen Kleinstadt Aremark grausam getötet wurde. Doch kurz bevor der Podcast veröffentlicht wird, wird Uteng ertrunken aufgefunden. Anton Brekke nimmt die Ermittlungen auf. Hängt Utengs Tod mit dem alten Fall zusammen? Wurde damals gar der Falsche für den Mord an Malin verurteilt? Ist der wahre Mörder von damals wieder aktiv? Während Brekke den alten Fall aufrollt, fühlt sich in Aremark die junge Emily von jemandem beobachtet.

Willkommen bei Schwedens Dezernat für die wirklich hoffnungslosen Fälle! Eigentlich steht Kriminalinspektorin Leonore Asker – Tochter eines durchgeknallten Preppers und einer Überflieger-Rechtsanwältin – kurz vor der Beförderung: Die Leitung der Abteilung für Schwerverbrechen in Malmö ist ihr so gut wie sicher. Stattdessen wird sie noch während der Ermittlungen in einem spektakulären Entführungsfall in ein Dezernat versetzt, von dem sie noch nie gehört hat: Ihre neuen Kollegen, allesamt Außenseiter und Nerds, nennen es nur "Dezernat für hoffnungslose Fälle", denn hier landet, was bei der Polizei als unlösbar gilt.

Ein grausiger Leichenfund schreckt das beschauliche Jütland im Süden Dänemarks auf. In die Brust des Toten, der aus dem Leichenschauhaus entwendet wurde, ist "Grandberg" eingeritzt, der Name der mächtigsten Familie im Dorf – und des örtlichen Polizeichefs. Und neben der Leiche steckt eine Schaufel im Boden, die ein mörderisches Geheimnis enthüllt: das Massengrab eines Serienkillers, der seine jungen Opfer mit kochender Milch verbrühte.

Noora Nieminen was destined to become a world champion. But when the sixteen-year-old skating sensation is found slain with her own skates, her promising career is unexpectedly cut short. Detective Maria Kallio is seven months pregnant, but that isn't going to stop her from putting everything she has into solving the murder. With a promotion on the line and her arrogant adversary, Pertti Ström, vying for the new job, Maria is determined to make an arrest.

When a boy leaps to his death from a bridge in the northern town of Umeå, Sweden, police discover drugs scattered in the snow near his body. The town has seen a dramatic increase in narcotic use among its youth, but nobody knows where the pills are coming from.