Swedish Crime Fiction Set 2
Explore gripping Swedish crime fiction with our curated list of top books. Discover thrilling mysteries, noir detectives, and suspenseful plots from Sweden's best authors.
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The Princess of Burundi
by Kjell Eriksson
Winner of the Swedish Crime Academy Award for Best Crime Novel, The Princess of Burundi introduces American readers to Kjell Eriksson--a crime writer who has quickly become an international sensation. This spellbinding new thriller opens when a young father fails to show up for supper on a snowy night just before Christmas. His is not the only sinister disappearance, and before the final breathtaking climax, a secret killer terrorizes an entire frightened town. Despite being on maternity leave, Inspector Ann Lindell is determined to find John's murderer. The cruel cat-and-mouse game that follows leads Ann to a deadly confrontation with a treacherous killer. Ann must decide whether to take a huge risk that could result in many more dead bodies in the snow, including hers and that of her unborn child.
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The Cruel Stars of the Night
by Kjell Eriksson
Winner of the Swedish crime Academy Award for Best Crime Novel, Kjell Eriksson received wide critical acclaim for his U.S. debut, the international bestseller The Princess of Burundi. Now, this spectacular follow-up thriller opens with the abrupt disappearance of an elderly professor, followed quickly by the suspicious deaths of two more old men. Inspector Ann Lindell instinctively knows that she is tracking a most cunning serial killer, and as she closes in on the demented murderer, a diabolical death trap awaits.
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The Demon of Dakar
by Kjell Eriksson
Already a huge star in Europe and the Nordic countries, Kjell Eriksson has American critics also raving, with almost every review studded with words like "stunning," "chilling," "suspenseful," "haunting," and "brilliant." In The Demon of Dakar, Ann Lindell and her motley crew of colleagues are faced with a most baffling murder case in which all clues lead straight back to a popular local restaurant named Dakar. The owner, Slobodan Andersson, has some shady connections in his past, and his partner's reputation is equally murky. The kitchen crew is not above suspicion, either. The meat chef is an oddball, to say the least, while unbeknownst to the rest, the newest hire's personal life is a tangled web of lies. Even Eva Willman, the seemingly blameless older woman returning to the workforce as a waitress, has skeletons in her closet. And then the tension rachets up a number of notches as it becomes apparent that one murder has not satisfied the killer in the least. If Ann is to prevent a bloodbath at Restaurant Dakar, she must match wits with a killer whose motives are seemingly completely obscure. But the reader knows the killer well. His crimes are justified from his point of view. Not only that, he's a very likable fellow who is only looking for justice. As in all of Kjell Eriksson's compelling spellbinders, though, justice entails a frantic race to the finish, a race without rules and fraught with danger. Winner of the Swedish Academy Award for Best Crime Novel.
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Echoes from the Dead
by Johan Theorin
On a gray September day, on an island off the coast of Sweden, six -year -old Jens Davidsson ventured out of his backyard, walked out into a fog, and vanished….Now twenty years have passed, and in this magnificent debut novel of suspense—a runaway bestseller in Sweden—the boy’s mother returns to the place where her son disappeared, drawn by a chilling package sent in the mail… In it, lovingly wrapped, is one of Jens’ sandals—sandals Julia Davidsson put on her son’s feet that very last morning. Now, with only a handful of clues, Julia and her father are questioning islanders who were present the day Jens vanished—and making a shocking connection to Öland’s most notorious murder case: the killing spree of a wealthy young man who fled the island and died years before Jens was even born. Suddenly the island that once seemed so achingly familiar turns strange and dangerous… Until Julia finds herself facing truths she never imagined—about what really happened on that September day twenty years ago, about who may have crossed paths with little Jens in the fog, and how a child could truly vanish without a trace…until now.
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The Darkest Room
by Johan Theorin
WINNER OF SWEDEN’S BEST CRIME NOVEL AWARD On the idyllic island of Öland, off the coast of northern Sweden, a young couple from Stockholm tries to start life afresh. For Joakim and Katrine Westin, reclaiming a long-neglected family manor will be a labor of love, as they slowly bring the sprawling home back to life and introduce their two children to the island’s woodlands, glens, and beaches. But in the Westins’ new home, there are things that cannot be repaired, lives that have gone wrong, and secrets that have followed them. When the family is struck by tragedy, it’s up to grief-stricken Joakim to put together a puzzle of inexplicable loss, unbearable suspicion, and tangled lives. In this powerhouse of suspense–at once a crime novel and a searing family drama–a home built as a shelter from the sea becomes a human storm of murder.
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Unseen
by Mari Jungstedt
Swedish crime at its best---dark, atmospheric, and chilling The island of Gotland is in the middle of a busy tourist season and getting ready for Midsummer, the 4th of July of Swedish holidays, when a young woman and her dog are found brutally murdered. The dog has been beheaded and is missing a paw; the woman is naked, covered in gruesome axe wounds, and her panties have been stuffed in her mouth. What looks like a crime committed by the victim's jealous husband keeps the local police force on their toes. Then a second victim is found. A serial killer terrorizes tourists and locals alike, and Inspector Anders Knutas has to face additional pressure from the media and local politicians who are worried about bad PR for the island. In his quest for the murderer, he is aided by Johan Berg, an intrepid young journalist from Stockholm who has been sent to cover the incidents and who gets involved with Emma, one of the first victim's close friends. Three women die before Knutas and Berg, each approaching the case in their own way, finally close in on the killer, who has always, until now, been the one unseen by everybody. Jungstedt has written an atmospheric and exciting first mystery in clear, unadorned prose, in the tradition of Henning Mankell, HĂĄkan Nesser, and Karin Fossum.
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Unspoken
by Mari Jungstedt
"Fanny is finally found, strangled to death and left on a lonely heath, covered by moss and branches. At the same time, grainy but explicit photographs of the girl with a stranger are discovered, hidden in Dahlstrom's darkroom. Intrepid TV journalist Johan Berg, sent from Stockholm to cover the two deaths, pushes the investigation one decisive step ahead while still trying to resolve his simmering relationship with Emma, a woman he first met last summer while investigating another series of murders on Gotland." "All evidence points to one of Fanny's coworkers at the stable, an American who has left the country for a short vacation. As Knutas and his team wait for his return to make the arrest, the inspector takes a well-deserved weekend off with an old friend, and at the lonely cottage in the woods, the pieces finally fit together. But this time, Knutas has gotten too close."--BOOK JACKET.
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The Inner Circle
by Mari Jungstedt
"Inspector Knutas and his team work feverishly to catch the killer, but before long there are more victims, all of whom have been killed and mutilated the same way."--BOOK JACKET.
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Italian Shoes
by Henning Mankell
From the prizewinning "master of atmosphere" (Boston Globe) comes the surprising and affecting story of a man well past middle age who suddenly finds himself on the threshold of renewal. Living on a tiny island entirely surrounded by ice during the long winter months, Fredrik Welin is so lost to the world that he cuts a hole in the ice every morning and lowers himself into the freezing water to remind himself that he is alive. Haunted by memories of the terrible mistake that drove him to this island and away from a successful career as a surgeon, he lives in a stasis so complete an anthill grows undisturbed in his living room. When an unexpected visitor alters his life completely, thus begins an eccentric, elegiac journey--one that shows Mankell at the very height of his powers as a novelist. A deeply human tale of loss and redemption, Italian Shoes is a testament to the unpredictability of life, which breeds hope even in the face of tragedy. .
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Kennedy's Brain
by Henning Mankell
From internationally bestselling author Henning Mankell comes a gripping mystery and a depiction of every parent's worst nightmare. When Louise Cantor finds her twenty-eight year old son dead in his apartment, everything indicates it was a suicide. Louise, however, refuses to accept this, and with nothing more than few suspicions and a mother's intuition, she and her ex-husband set out to find what happened. What they discover is a dark underworld of people exploiting the victims of the AIDS epidemic: corrupt businessmen dealing infected blood, suspicious researchers carrying out dangerous tests, and lecherous drug dealers peddling black market medicine. Their investigation takes them across three continents, and leads them into some mighty financial institutions and highest corridors of power, where suddenly their own lives are at stake.
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The Man from Beijing
by Henning Mankell
In the aftermath of the 2006 massacre of 19 people in a Swedish village, Judge Birgitta Roslin, a granddaughter of two of the victims, discovers the 19th-century diary of a gang leader that reveals the case's eerie connections to the abuse of Chinese slave workers. By the award-winning author of the Kurt Wallander mysteries.
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Depths
by Henning Mankell
From the dean of Scandinavian noir and internationally bestselling author, Henning Mankell, comes a lyrical and evocative novel about a Swedish naval engineer during World War I and his devastating plunge into obsession. In 1914 Lars Tobiasson-Svartman is covertly measuring the depths of Swedish coastal waters. A man of discipline and obsessed with exactitude, he is more comfortable on naval vessels than he is in his loveless marriage back in Stockholm. On one of his missions, Lars discovers a feral but beautiful woman living alone on a remote island. Passion, suspicion, and violence are awakened in him and soon he is living a double life-lying to his wife and his superiors and submerging himself in a pool of deception that has devastating consequences.
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The Ice Princess
by Camilla Läckberg
After she returns to her hometown to learn that her friend, Alex, was found in an ice-cold bath with her wrists slashed, biographer Erica Falck researches her friend's past in hopes of writing a book and joins forces with Detective Patrik Hedstrom, who has his own suspicions about the case.
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The Preacher
by Camilla Läckberg
For the first time in English, the second psychological thriller from No 1 bestselling Swedish crime sensation Camilla Lackberg.
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The Stonecutter
by Camilla Läckberg
For the first time in English, the third psychological thriller from No 1 bestselling Swedish crime sensation Camilla Lackberg.
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Roseanna
by Maj Sjowall
With a New Introduction by Henning Mankell. The masterful first novel in the Martin Beck series of mysteries by the internationally renowned crime writing duo Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö ("the best writers of police procedurals in the world"), finds Beck hunting for the murderer of a lonely traveler. On a July afternoon, a young woman's body is dredged from Sweden's beautiful Lake Vattern. With no clues Beck begins an investigation not only to uncover a murderer but also to discover who the victim was. Three months later, all Beck knows is that her name was Roseanna and that she could have been strangled by any one of eighty-five people on a cruise. As the melancholic Beck narrows the list of suspects, he is drawn increasingly to the enigma of the victim, a free-spirited traveler with a penchant for casual sex, and to the psychopathology of a murderer with a distinctive--indeed, terrifying--sense of propriety.
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The Man Who Went Up in Smoke
by Maj Sjowall
The masterful second novel in the Martin Beck series of mysteries by the internationally renowned crime writing duo, Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, finds Beck searching Budapest for a well-known Swedish journalist who has disappeared without a trace. With an introduction by Val McDermid: "So many of the elements that have become integral...in the police procedural subgenre started life in these ten novels....Their plots are second to none." Inspector Martin Beck of the Stockholm Homicide Squad has his summer vacation abruptly terminated when the top brass at the foreign office pack him off to Budapest to search for Alf Matsson, a well-known Swedish journalist who has vanished. Beck investigates viperous Eastern European underworld figures and--at the risk of his life--stumbles upon the international racket in which Matsson was involved. With the coolly efficient local police on his side and a predatory nymphet on his tail, Beck pursues a case whose international implications grow with each new clue.
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The Man on the Balcony
by Maj Sjowall
In this chilling installment of “the first great series of police thrillers” (Michael Ondaatje, national bestselling author of Warlight) by an internationally renowned crime duo, superintendent Martin Beck investigates a string of child murders. In the once peaceful parks of Stockholm, a killer is stalking young girls and disposing their bodies. The city is on edge, and an undercurrent of fear has gripped its residents. Martin Beck, now a superintendent, has two possible witnesses: a silent, stone-cold mugger and a mute three year old boy. With the likelihood of another murder growing as each day passes, the police force work night and day. But their efforts have offered little insight into the methodology of the killer. Then a distant memory resurfaces in Beck's mind, and he may just have the break he needs.
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The Laughing Policeman
by Maj Sjowall
The incredible fourth novel in the Martin Beck mystery series by the internationally renowned crime writing duo Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, finds Martin Beck heading a major manhunt in pursuit of a mass-murderer. With a new introduction by Jonathan Franzen: "I've read The Laughing Policeman six or eight times. Each time I reach the final twist on the final page, I shiver afresh." On a cold and rainy Stockholm night, nine bus riders are gunned down by a mysterious assassin. The press portrays it as a freak attack and dubs the killer a madman. But Superintendent Martin Beck thinks otherwise—one of his most ambitious young detectives was among those killed—and he suspects it was more than coincidence. Working on a hunch, Beck seeks out the girlfriend of the murdered detective, and with her help Beck reconstructs the steps that led to his murder. The police comb the country for the killer, only to find that this attack may be connected to a case that has been unsolved for years.
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The Fire Engine that Disappeared
by Maj Sjowall
The lightning-paced fifth novel in the Martin Beck mystery series by the internationally renowned crime writing duo, Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, finds Beck investigating one of the strangest, most violent, and unforgettable crimes of his career.The incendiary device that blew the roof off a Stockholm apartment not only interrupted the small, peaceful orgy underway inside, it nearly took the lives of the building's eleven occupants. And if one of Martin Beck's colleagues hadn't been on the scene, the explosion would have led to a major catastrophe because somehow a regulation fire-truck has vanished. Was it terrorism, suicide, or simply a gas leak? And what if, anything, did the explosion have to do with the peculiar death earlier that day of a 46-year-old bachelor whose cryptic suicide note consisted of only two words: "Martin Beck"?
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Murder at the Savoy
by Maj Sjowall
The shocking sixth novel in the Martin Beck mystery series by the internationally renowned crime writing duo by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, finds Beck investigating a brutal assassination. With an introduction by Arne Dahl. When Viktor Palmgren, a powerful Swedish industrialist is shot during his after-dinner speech in the luxurious Hotel Savoy, it sends a shiver down the spine of the international money markets and terrifies the tiny town of Malmo. No one in the restaurant can identify the gunman, and local police are sheepishly baffled. That's when Beck takes over the scene and quickly picks through Palmgren's background. What he finds is a web of vice so despicable that it's hard for him to imagine who wouldn't want Palmgren dead, but that doesn't stop him and his team of dedicated detectives from tackling one of their most intriguing cases yet.
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The Abominable Man
by Maj Sjowall
The striking seventh novel in the Martin Beck mystery series by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, finds Beck facing one of the greatest challenges in his professional career. The gruesome murder of a police captain in his hospital room reveals the unsavory history of a man who spent forty years practicing a horrible blend of strong-arm police work and shear brutality. Martin Beck and his colleagues feverishly comb Stockholm for the murderer, a demented and deadly rifleman, who has plans for even more chaos. As the tension builds and a feeling of imminent danger grips Beck, his investigation unearths evidence of police corruption. That’s when an even stronger sense of responsibility and something like shame urge him into taking a series of drastic steps, which lead to a shocking disaster.
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The Locked Room
by Maj Sjöwall
The mysterious shooting of a man found dead in a locked room sends Martin Beck searching for clues through Sweden.
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Cop Killer
by Maj Sjowall
The shocking ninth novel in the Martin Beck mystery series by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö finds Beck investigating parallel cases that have shocked a small rural community. In a country town, a woman is brutally murdered and left buried in a swamp. There are two main suspects: her closest neighbor and her ex-husband. Meanwhile, on a quiet suburban street a midnight shootout takes place between three cops and two teenage boys. Dead, one cop and one kid. Wounded, two cops. Escaped, one kid. Martin Beck and his partner Lenart Kollberg are called in to investigate. As Beck digs deeper into the murky waters of the young girl’s murder, Kollberg scours the town for the teenager, and together they are forced to examine the changing face of crime.
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The Terrorists
by Maj Sjowall
The final novel in the Martin Beck mystery series by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö is a masterful, all consuming tale that rushes toward a thrilling, unexpected climax. With a new introduction by Dennis Lehane: "Tension so thick the reader could crack a tooth." An American senator is visiting Stockholm and Martin Beck must lead a team to protect him from an international gang of terrorists. However, in the midst of the fervor created by the diplomatic visit, a young, peace-loving woman is accused of robbing a bank. Beck is determined to prove her innocence, but gets trapped in the maze of police bureaucracy. To complicate matters a millionaire pornographer has been bludgeoned to death in his own bathtub. Filled with the twists and turns and the pulse pounding excitement that are the hallmarks of the Martin Beck novels, The Terrorists is the stunning conclusion to the incredible series that changed crime fiction forever.
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Blackwater
by Kerstin Ekman
As she walks through the forest outside a remote Swedish village in 1974, a woman stumbles upon the site of a grisly double murder--a crime that will remain unsolved for nearly 20 years.
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Under the Snow
by Kerstin Ekman
From the author of Blackwater comes this atmospheric and chilling tale of small-town secrets and jealousy set in the icy northern landscape of Lapland. When an artist named Matti is killed at a mah jongg party, Police Constable Torsson skis to the remote village of Rakisjok to investigate. Once there, witnesses evade the constable's questions and insist that Matti walked off into the wilderness and froze to death. With no clues to go on, Torsson closes his case. Then David, an old friend of Matti's, arrives in town and together with Torsson, he sets out to get at the truth about Matti's death.
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Good night, my darling
by Inger Frimansson
This was the break-through novel for one of Scandinavias premier psychological thriller writers: Inger Frimansson - More than 150,000 copies have been sold in Sweden and has now been published in 9 countries - It has become a bestseller also in Germany, where it has been re-printed six times since its first publication in 2002. In addition to the success of the original edition, the novel has also been published in several other editions by Bertelsmann.- It was awarded with the Swedish Academy of Crime Writers Award for Best Swedish Crime Novel 1998.
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The Shadow in the Water
by Inger Frimansson
Six years have passed since Justine Dalvik had killed a couple of tormentors, but in her nightmares, Justine sees the dead body of Berit coming up to the surface of the water of Mlaren. "The Shadow In The Water" has been awarded the Swedish Academy of Crime Writers' Award in 2005 for Best Swedish Crime Novel of the Year.
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Island of the Naked Women
by Inger Frimansson
Tobias, a mystery writer, returns to the family farm to care for his father. There he is allured by his father's young wife Sabina. Meanwhile, Hardy, the hired hand, scoffs at Tobias' city ways, while encouraging Sabina's mentally challenged son Adam to turn into an Elvis impersonator; and Ingelize, who runs a riding school, finds Tobias irresistible. Soon death strikes and chaos ensues.
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Red Wolf
by Liza Marklund
In the middle of the freezing winter, a journalist is murdered in the northern Swedish town of Lulea. Crime reporter Annika Bengtzon suspects that the killing is linked to an attack against an air base in the late sixties. Against the explicit orders of her boss, Annika continues her investigation of the death, which is soon followed by a series of shocking murders. Annika quickly finds herself drawn into a spiral of terrorism and violence centered around a small communist group called The Beasts. Meanwhile, her marriage starts to slide, and in the end she is not only determined to find out the truth, but also forced to question her own husband's honesty.
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Between Summer's Longing and Winter's End
by Leif G. W. Persson
A first entry in a trilogy inspired by the unsolved 1986 assassination of Swedish Prime Minister Olaf Palme traces an investigation into an unknown American's death in Stockholm that reveals a complex web of espionage and intelligence failures.
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Enemy's Enemy
by Jan Guillou
The American debut of a bestselling European novelist--and introducing a dazzling new hero of espionage: Swedish Navy Commander Carl Hamilton. Blazing a path of cunning and mayhem across the Middle East, Europe and Moscow, Hamilton lures the reader to a final heart-stopping confrontation with terrorists wreaking political havoc on Europe.