Flat lay of Scandinavian fiction books against textiles.

Vintage_Scandi_fiction_reading_list_2022

Reading lists

10 must-read Scandinavian novels

Hellfire

The brand new psychological crime novel in the award-winning Inspector Sejer series, books beloved for their deep insight into the human mind

Fossum writes humane thrillers which perturb and chill

Fossum's intelligence compassion...is not often found in the pages of crime fiction

A superb writer of psychological suspense

There’s always something dark hovering on the edge of the page, something about getting what you wish for and the crushing irony when that gift proves your undoing

Superb... less a police procedural than a portrait of a society in crisis... the slow, deliberate revelation of the story behind the crime is dramatic and heartbreaking

Fossum traces the parallels between the mothers and sons so patiently, precisely, and compassionately that even fans who know all too well what's bound to happen when their paths converge will be shocked into fresh grief themselves

One of Karin Fossum’s best crime stories... Fossum expertly captures the nuances of everyday life and the way in which people struggle to make sense of life... Karin Fossum is in a class of her own as a crime writer

The opening scene showcases Fossum at her best – the dank camper van, the heat and the brutal murders. The detailed, subdued tone; the grotesque in the middle of the everyday

High-quality crime of the best, international standard. She has now focused her attention on a novel which, in my opinion, has to be one of her very best... So disturbing, riveting and painful that you can’t help but be drawn in

Karin Fossum’s critically acclaimed novels have won numerous prizes. She is two-time winner of the prestigious Riverton Award and has also won the Glass Key Award for the best Nordic crime novel, an honour shared with Henning Mankell and Jo Nesbo, as well as the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Her highly acclaimed Inspector Sejer series has been published in more than forty countries.

A mother and child are found dead in an old caravan on a remote piece of land. There is a bloody footprint at the scene. 
 
Meanwhile, another mother confesses to her son that he is adopted. The man who abandoned them, now the focus of the boy's obsession, is not his real father. 
 
Chief Inspector Sejer is tasked with investigating the murder – and soon receives important information about the two families...

The Drowned Boy

Fossum’s Inspector Sejer novels are invariably morally and psychologically complex affairs, but The Drowned Boy might well be her crowning achievement to date

A simple but gripping story, balanced, believable and compassionate, about a sensitive subject

A tightly woven tale in spare but piercing prose

Karin Fossum's minimalist police procedurals... have a stealthy way of mutating into richer, if also darker, psychological studies of criminals and their victims... In the end, the novel isn't about willful murder or even accidental death, but the psychological aftershocks for the living

Reading a Karin Fossum novel is always a wonderful, almost meditative, experience. Even though she writes about horrible crimes, her compassion and intelligence shine through, and by the time you reach the final page you’re left feeling irrevocably changed - for the better. Her latest, The Drowned Boy, is right up there among her best

Fossum shows us how the crime novel can be more than sheer entertainment… Well-written and gripping

Karin Fossum is among our foremost authors, regardless of genre. This because of her unique ability to create real people and her deep understanding of the human soul. She has always mastered this, but never better than in The Drowned Boy

Among Fossum’s finest novels…a strong literary quality and quivering suspense

‘He'd just learnt to walk,’ she said. ‘He was sitting playing on his blanket, then all of a sudden he was gone.’ 
 
 A 16-month-old boy is found drowned in a pond right by his home. Chief Inspector Sejer is called to the scene as there is something troubling about the mother’s story. As even her own family turns against her, Sejer is determined to get to the truth.

The Murder of Harriet Krohn

A brilliant why-dunit from Norway's 'Queen of Crime'

A thoughtful dissection of crime and its consequences

Fossum’s descriptive prose is a reminder, for criminals and readers alike, that the details that damn us are likely to be the ones that escaped us

Charlo Torp has problems. 
 
He’s grieving for his late wife, he’s lost his job, and gambling debts have alienated him from his teenage daughter. Desperate, his solution is to rob an elderly woman of her money and silverware. But Harriet Krohn fights back, and Charlo loses control. 
 
Wracked with guilt, Charlo attempts to rebuild his life. But the police are catching up with him, and Inspector Konrad Sejer has never lost a case yet. 
 
Told through the eyes of a killer, The Murder of Harriet Krohn poses the question: how far would you go to turn your life around, and could you live with yourself afterwards?

I Can See in the Dark

A brilliant psychological crime novel for readers looking for something dark and disturbing: a man has done something awful, but now he's been accused of a crime he knows he didn't commit

An absolute must for any fan of thrillers who wants something a bit dark and disturbing... Fans of both Kathy Reichs and Sophie Hannah should enjoy this book immensely.

The storytelling is outstanding... Dark, brilliant, and guaranteed to leave you a little queasy

A dark and disturbing thriller - a story of madness which is controlled and kept hidden until anger and rage break that control and the dark depths spring out

Riktor doesn’t like the way the policeman comes straight into the house without knocking. He doesn’t like the arrogant way he observes his home.The policeman doesn’t tell him why he’s there, and Riktor doesn’t ask. Because he knows he’s guilty of a terrible crime. 
 
But it turns out that the policeman isn’t looking for a missing person. He is accusing Riktor of something totally unexpected. Riktor doesn’t have a clear conscience, but this is a crime he certainly didn’t commit.

Don't Look Back

A brilliantly engaging atmospheric thriller from Norway's Queen of Crime

'Don't Look Back, shows just how well [Fossum] deserves her continental fame... all of her characters [are] marked by an intelligent compassion that is not often found in the pages of crime fiction and her prose comes through translation with grace and style

Ends with such a blow to the stomach that most readers will wish they had failed to understand the appalling outcome to this apparently routine investigation

[From] Norway's Queen of crime...an engaging, atmospheric thriller

Karin Fossum’s critically acclaimed novels have won numerous prizes. She is two-time winner of the prestigious Riverton Award and has also won the Glass Key Award for the best Nordic crime novel, an honour shared with Henning Mankell and Jo Nesbo, as well as the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Her highly acclaimed Inspector Sejer series has been published in more than forty countries.

Beneath the imposing Kollen Mountain lies a small village where the children run in and out of one another's houses and play unafraid in the streets. But when a naked body is found by the lake at the top of the mountain, its seeming tranquillity is disturbed forever. 
 
Inspector Sejer, a tough, no-nonsense policeman whose own life is tinged by sadness, is called in to investigate. As the suspense builds, and the list of suspects grows, Sejer's determination to discover the truth leads him to peel away layer upon layer of distrust and lies in this tiny community where apparently normal family ties hide dark secrets. 
 
Critically acclaimed across Europe and loved by fellow crime writers including Jo Nesbo, Ruth Rendell and Colin Dexter, Karin Fossum's novels evoke a world that is terrifyingly familiar.

He Who Fears the Wolf

The second Inspector Sejer mystery from 'Norway's Queen of Crime', featuring all of Fossum's superb plotting, fresh style and brilliant characterisation. Perfect for fans of Ruth Rendell, Val McDermid and Minette Walters

Terribly clever and enjoyably sly. Great stuff

Fossum's presentation of her characters is marked by an intelligence and compassion that is not often found in the pages of crime fiction

A twelve-year-old boy runs into his local police station claiming to have seen a brutally dismembered corpse. Errki Johrma, an escaped psychiatric patient and known town misfit, was spotted at the scene before he disappeared into the woods. The next morning the local bank is robbed at gunpoint. Making his escape, the robber takes a hostage and also flees into the woods. 
 
As the search for Halldis Horn's killer continues all fingers of suspicion point to Errki - except one. Errki's doctor refuses to believe that he could have committed such an horrific act and, for the first time since his wife's death, Inspector Sejer finds himself intrigued by another woman. 
 
The second novel in the Inspector Sejer series displays all of Karin Fossum's acclaimed plotting and characterisation.

Karin Fossum

Kari Dickson

It is her ability to make average, often wounded human psyches crackle and glow…that is Fossum’s forte...She has an exceptional eye for fragility and vulnerability, and the complexity and dark humour of these states of mind.

The Whisperer contains deep psychological insight ... Creepy, unnerving discomfort and plausible madness in everyday life… Builds towards the shocking reveal.

Exemplary… the suspense is maintained with a sure touch

The new twists are all wonderful and the old creepy atmosphere is brilliantly recreated with Long Island’s swirling mists

The final page will make your jaw drop and your heart stop

The Whisperer is not just one of the best works of crime fiction I have ever read but one of the best novels I have ever read… a fascinating exploration of the mentality of a paranoid schizophrenic… It is SO brilliant! Fossum… really seems to know human nature

Fossum has used her talent for drawing us into the minds of the misunderstood to powerful effect… [The Whisperer] can be enjoyed on its own merits as a work of fiction; yet it also communicates an experience of psychosis in a way no textbook can

Read the stunning, psychologically acute new thriller from the Queen of Norwegian crime fiction. 
 
 **SHORTLISTED FOR THE PETRONA AWARD 2019** 
 
Ragna Riegel works in a supermarket and still lives in her childhood home. She's alone in the world since her only son moved to Berlin. She longs for a Christmas or birthday card from him. 
 
Ragna lives her life within strict self-imposed limits: she sits in the same seat on the bus every day, on her way to her predictable job. On her way home she always visits the same local shop. She feels safe in her routine, until one day she receives a letter with a threatening message scrawled in capital letters. An unknown enemy has entered her world and she must use all her means to defend herself. 
 
When the worst happens, Inspector Konrad Sejer is called in to interrogate Ragna. Is this unassuming woman out of her depth, or is she hiding a dark secret? 
 
 ‘The final page will make your jaw drop and your heart stop’ Evening Standard 
 
 ‘Exemplary… the suspense is maintained with a sure touch’ Guardian

Karin Fossum

Praise for The Whisperer

It is her ability to make average, often wounded human psyches crackle and glow…that is Fossum’s forte...She has an exceptional eye for fragility and vulnerability, and the complexity and dark humour of these ...

The Whisperer contains deep psychological insight ... Creepy, unnerving discomfort and plausible madness in everyday life… Builds towards the shocking reveal.

Exemplary… the suspense is maintained with a sure touch

It is her ability to make average, often wounded human psyches crackle and glow…that is Fossum’s forte...She has an exceptional eye for fragility and vulnerability, and the complexity and dark humour of these ...

The Whisperer contains deep psychological insight ... Creepy, unnerving discomfort and plausible madness in everyday life… Builds towards the shocking reveal.

Exemplary… the suspense is maintained with a sure touch

It is her ability to make average, often wounded human psyches crackle and glow…that is Fossum’s forte...She has an exceptional eye for fragility and vulnerability, and the complexity and dark humour of these ...

The Whisperer contains deep psychological insight ... Creepy, unnerving discomfort and plausible madness in everyday life… Builds towards the shocking reveal.

Exemplary… the suspense is maintained with a sure touch

Books by Karin Fossum

Series by Karin Fossum

Inspector Sejer

Articles featuring Karin Fossum

10 must-read Scandinavian novels

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