Scandinavian Mysteries

"The North" is simultaneously a location, a direction, and a mystical concept. Although this concept has ancient roots in mythology, folklore, and fairy tales, it continues to resonate today within modern culture. McIntosh leads listeners through the magical and spiritual history of the North, as well as its modern manifestations, as documented through physical records, such as runestones and megaliths, but also through mythology and lore. This mythic conception of a powerful, mysterious Northern civilization was known to the Greeks as "Hyberborea" - the "Land Beyond the North Wind".

The downloadable, digital audiobook edition of Jussi Adler-Olsen’s sensational new thriller, read by the actor Steven Pacey. Two boys, brothers, wake tied and bound in a boathouse by the sea. Their kidnapper has gone, but soon he will return. Their bonds are inescapable. But there is a bottle and tar to seal it. Paper and a splinter for writing; blood for ink. A message begging for help. In Copenhagen’s cold cases division Carl Morck has received a bottle. It holds an old and decayed message, written in blood.

The unabridged, digital audiobook edition of Jussi Adler-Olsen’s Mercy, Scandinavia’s new bestselling crime phenomenon. Read by the actor Steven Pacey. At first the prisoner scratches at the walls until her fingers bleed. But there is no escaping the room. With no way of measuring time, her days, weeks, months go unrecorded. She vows not to go mad. She will not give her captors the satisfaction.

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....

William’s father is a beloved opera singer in Stockholm, charismatic and unpredictable. Raised in the shadow of his father’s addictions—women, drink, and cruelty—he knows the man’s dark side. William believes he’s found the light when he falls in love with a fellow university student, a young woman named Ebba. But his father’s hold on his life is not so easily broken. Even in death.

When Kurt Wallander first appeared in Faceless Killers back in 1990, he was a senior police officer, just turned 40, with his life in a mess. His wife had left him, his father barely acknowledged him; he ate badly and drank alone at night. The Pyramid chronicles the events that led him to such a place. We see him in the early years, doing hours on the beat whilst trying to solve a murder off-duty; witness the beginnings of his fragile relationship with Mona, the woman he has his heart set on marrying.

Sonny's on the run. Sonny is a model prisoner. He listens to the confessions of other inmates, and absolves them of their sins. He's been lied to his whole life. But then one prisoner’s confession changes everything. He knows something about Sonny’s disgraced father. Sonny wants revenge. He needs to break out of prison and make those responsible pay for their crimes. Whatever the cost.

Harry is on a special mission. Detective Harry Hole arrives in a steaming hot Bangkok. The Norwegian ambassador has been found dead in a seedy motel room, and Harry has been sent to investigate. It’s clear that the Ambassador’s family are hiding some secrets of their own, but few people are willing to talk.He needs to solve a crime and avoid a scandal. When Harry lays hands on some incriminating CCTV footage, things only get more complicated.

A woman is found murdered after an Internet date. The marks left on her body show the police that they are dealing with a particularly vicious killer. Under pressure from the media to find the murderer, the force know there's only one man for the job. But Harry Hole is reluctant to return to the place that almost took everything from him. Until he starts to suspect a connection between this killing and his one failed case.

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Buried, the fifth installment of the Department Q series by Jussi Adler-Olsen, read by Steven Pacey. More than three years ago, a civil servant vanished after returning from a work trip to Africa. Though he is missing and presumed dead, the man's family still want answers. It is one of the many unsolved crimes left for Department Q, Denmark's cold-case unit headed up by Detective Carl Morck.

When a six-year-old girl is found dead, hanging from a tree, the only clue the Oslo Police have to work with is an airline tag around her neck. It reads, 'I'm travelling alone'. Holger Munch, veteran police investigator, is immediately charged with reassembling his homicide unit. But to complete the team, he must convince his erstwhile partner, Mia Krüger - a brilliant but troubled investigator - to return from the solitary island where she has retreated with plans to take her own life.

young woman is murdered in her Oslo flat. One finger has been severed from her left hand, and behind her eyelid is secreted a tiny red diamond in the shape of a five-pointed star – a pentagram, the devil’s star. Detective Harry Hole is assigned to the case with his long-time adversary Tom Waaler and initially wants no part in it. But Harry is already on notice to quit the force and is left with little alternative but to drag himself out of his alcoholic stupor and get to work. A wave of similar murders is on the horizon. An emerging pattern suggests that Oslo has a serial killer on its hands....

Harry Hole, drunkard, loner and brilliant detective is reassigned to surveillance after a high profile mistake. He’s bored by his new job until a report of a rare and unusual gun being fired sparks his interest because of its possible links to Neo Nazi activity. Then a former soldier is found with his throat cut. Next Harry’s former partner is murdered. Why had she been trying to reach Harry on the night her head was smashed in?

The police urgently need Harry Hole. A killer is stalking Oslo’s streets. Police officers are being slain at the scenes of crimes they once investigated, but failed to solve. The murders are brutal, the media reaction hysterical. But this time, Harry can’t help anyone. For years, detective Harry Hole has been at the centre of every major criminal investigation in Oslo. His dedication to his job and his brilliant insights have saved the lives of countless people. But now, with those he loves most facing terrible danger, Harry can’t protect anyone. Least of all himself.

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.

Shortly before Christmas, Chief Inspector Hanne Wilhelmsen is called to the scene of multiple murders. Four people are found shot dead at the home of the wealthy Stahlberg family. Three of the dead are members of the family, and the fourth victim is an undistinguished author, seemingly out of place. As Hanne and her longtime police partner, Billy T., investigate, they unearth many motives for the murders. But Hanne doesn't believe that the full story has been revealed.

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of The Darkness by Ragnar Jonasson. A young woman, an asylum seeker from Russia, is found murdered on the seaweed-covered rocks of the Vatnsleysuströnd in Iceland. Detective Inspector Hulda Hermannsdottir of the Reykjavik Police is called to investigate this - the final case in her career before she is forced into retirement. When Hulda starts to ask questions, it isn't long before she realises that no-one can be trusted and that no-one is telling the whole truth.

A young boy wakes to find his mother missing. Their house is empty but outside in the garden he sees his mother's favourite scarf – wrapped around the neck of a snowman. As Harry Hole and his team begin their investigation they discover that an alarming number of wives and mothers have gone missing over the years. When a second woman disappears it seems that Harry's worst suspicions are confirmed: for the first time in his career Harry finds himself confronted with a serial killer operating on his home turf.

Random House presents the audiobook edition of The White Lioness by Henning Mankell, read by Sean Barrett. In 1992, in peaceful Southern Sweden, Louise Akerblom, an estate agent, pillar of the Methodist church, wife and mother, disappears. There is no explanation and no motive. Inspector Wallander and his team are called in to investigate. As Wallander is introduced to this case, he has a gut feeling that the victim will never be found alive, but he has no idea how far he will have to go in search of the killer.

Random House presents the audiobook edition of The Dogs of Riga by Henning Mankell, read by Sean Barrett. Sweden, winter, 1991. Inspector Kurt Wallander and his team receive an anonymous tip-off. A few days later a life raft is washed up on a beach. In it are two men, dressed in expensive suits, shot dead. The dead men were criminals, victims of what seems to have been a gangland hit. But what appears to be an open-and-shut case soon takes on a far more sinister aspect.