Swedish Crime Fiction

Just when things have finally cooled down for 88-year-old Maud after the disturbing discovery of a dead body in her apartment in Gothenburg, a couple of detectives return to her doorstep. Though Maud dodges their questions with the skill of an Olympic gymnast a fifth of her age, she wonders if suspicion has fallen on her, little old lady that she is. The truth is, ever since Maud was a girl, death has seemed to follow her....

Art expert Emma Lindhal is anxious when she's asked to appraise the antiques in the infamous manor house of one of Sweden's wealthiest families, on the island of Storholmen, where a young woman was murdered nine years earlier, her killer never found. As she goes about her painstaking work and one shocking discovery yields clues that lead to another, Emma becomes determined to uncover the secrets of the house and its occupants. When the lifeless body of another young woman is found in the icy waters surrounding the island, Detective Karl Rosén arrives to investigate.

Set in the fictional city of Maardam, each story is linked by themes of secrets coming to light, lies being exposed, and pasts coming back to haunt the people who thought they had fled them – all told in Håkan Nesser’s signature style of dark, cutting prose that displays a true understanding of human nature. The collection is the basis for a trilogy of international films - Dear Agnes, Death of an Author and Samaria - directed by Daniel Alfredson and starring Ben Kingsley and Gemma Chan.

She: a very hot 30-something Swedish woman. He: a native of Berlin, on vacation in rural Sweden, seeking solace for his broken heart. They meet. He finds her irresistible. But before their relationship can get off the ground, she vanishes mysteriously, having apparently been abducted. So Martin sets out to rescue Liv from her captors, with the aid of two Swedish detectives in a race against time - and across Sweden. In so doing, Martin and his intrepid detective duo put their very lives on the line.

Sweden 2012. When Inspector Gunnar Barbarotti returns to work after a terrible personal tragedy, his boss asks him to investigate a cold case, hoping to ease him back gently into his police duties. Five years previously a shy electrician, Arnold Morinder, disappeared from the face of the earth, the only clue his blue moped abandoned in a nearby swamp. At the time his partner, Ellen Bjarnebo, claimed that Arnold had probably travelled to Norway never to return. But Ellen is one of Sweden’s most notorious killers.

En sommarfredag i Stockholm: Ewert Truut är nära att bli skjuten av en desperat tonårsflicka. När hon avväpnats och förts till sjukhus visar det sig att någon skurit av hennes tunga. Något dygn senare blir en av Ewerts vänner brutalt mördad och verkligheten vänds upp och ner, inte minst när det visar sig att det finns en koppling mellan flickan och hans vän. När Ewert börjar nysta i trådarna dras han in i en ljusskygg härva av prostitution, människohandel och barnarov.

Summer 1983: four-year-old Billy chases a rabbit in the fields behind his house. But when his mother goes to call him in, Billy has disappeared. Never to be seen again. Today: Veronica is a bereavement counsellor. She's never fully come to terms with her mother's suicide after her brother Billy's disappearance. When a young man walks into her group, he looks familiar and talks about the trauma of his friend's disappearance in 1983. Could Billy still be alive after all this time?

When a British heir hunter fails to return home after a trip to Malmö, Inspector Anita Sundström doesn't want to get entangled in a simple missing persons case. She shows a similar reluctance when her ex-husband begs her to find his girlfriend, who seems to have disappeared. But when the mysteries take a sinister turn, Sundström finds herself inextricably involved in both baffling affairs, one of which seems to be connected to a robbery that took place 20 years earlier. As the cases begin to unravel, tragedy awaits the investigating team.

Lucky Santangelo har en plan. Hon ska köpa Panther Studios - filmbolaget som hennes skådespelande make, Lennie Golden, är bunden till. Allt som behövs är att gamle Abe Panther går med på att sälja. Vad Lucky aldrig kunnat förutspå är att Abe har ett väldigt specifikt krav för att affären ska gå i lås. Hon måste hjälpa honom sätta dit arvtagarna som driver bolaget, en gång för alla. Sex veckors arbete under täckmantel - sen är Panther Studios hennes.

For psychological profiler Hanne Lagerlind-Schön, life is good. She and her partner, investigator Peter Lindgren, have just returned from a dream holiday in Greenland, and the symptoms of her early onset dementia seem to be under control. Then they are asked to go to the small, sleepy industrial town of Ormberg to investigate a cold case: 10 years earlier a five-year-old girl's remains were found in a cairn near the town. With her dementia creeping back again, Hanne starts to keep a diary noting down everything she is likely to forget.

As the spring warmth melts the ice, divers search the wreckage at the bottom of the Ångermanland River - but the murdered man they recover was put there much more recently than the historic artefacts they were seeking. Local Detective Eira Sjödin, newly pregnant and not talking about it, is proud to be put in charge of the investigation - until she discovers the man's identity, and the evidence begins to point towards her own family.

In einem kleinen Waldstück bei Vimmerby, mitten in der schwedischen Provinz, wird eine weibliche Leiche gefunden. Sie hat weder Handy noch Papiere bei sich. Die Ermittler Marten Henriksson und Lena Wallin - einst glücklich verheiratet - übernehmen den Fall und kämpfen währenddessen mit ihrer gemeinsamen Vergangenheit.

Gothenburg, Sweden: During a break-in at the luxurious home of Kenneth and Viola Svalborg, someone has neatly sliced valuable paintings from their frames. Also missing is the neighbor's beautiful 15-year-old daughter, Elina Gullberg, who was babysitting for the Svalborg's two sons. Did she follow the thieves of her own accord? Was she involved with the break-in? Her parents, Daniel and Miriam Gullberg, are sick with worry.

On the west coast of Sweden, in Skärhamn on Tjörn, Chief Inspector Greger Thulin thinks he lives at an idyllic spot. But even the most beautiful painting can have a faulty stroke of the brush. Hiding behind the walls of Bleket School, are bullying and drug addicted students. Homeroom teacher, Jonas Blomgren, lives on Rönnvägen. Amanda Durén and Belinda Wallin are pupils in his class.

Arne Hildeng is found dead on his luxury Storebro yacht docked at the harbor in Skärhamn. Also onboard is Andrea, his wife. Did she murder her husband? Or could the murderer be someone else in the Hildeng family? And Chief Inspector Greger Thulin didn't expect to see yet another Storebro dock at the wharf. Arne Hildeng's brother, Jon, and his wife, Mette, climb out of that boat, and Inspector Katarina Linde notices that Mette tries to keep her face hidden. But Katarina can see that the bruises are fresh.

I de minsta av städer finns de största hemligheterna. Ibland så stora att mord är det enda sättet att bevara dem. Efter att hennes äktenskap går i kras söker den danska läkaren Maja Holm tillflykt i en avlägsen norsk kuststad. I ett försök att glömma sitt förflutna och orka med de dygnslånga arbetspassen på det lokala sjukhusets vårdcentral självmedicinerar hon med både alkohol och läkemedel, något som hennes omgivning snart börjar uppmärksamma. När en av hennes akutpatienter dör av en överdos får hennes känslomässiga bedövning ett abrupt slut.

In the crime novella Secrets?, fledgling private investigator Elin Bohlander takes on what looks like an easy assignment - at first: to determine if her client’s boyfriend is having an affair with another woman. To do this, Elin follows him to a secluded cabin in the woods, where she soon discovers that what’s actually transpiring is stranger than anyone thought. Having ventured too far, she’s stumbled upon a hornet’s nest and put her life at risk. But it’s too late. Can Elin win the unequal fight against a gang of brutal child molesters?

From the introduction by James Thompson: Finland, the myths and truths. Internationally, it has a reputation as perhaps the best place in the world to live. A great economy. A low crime rate. Good and nearly cost-free health care. The needy are provided for by the state and live in reasonable comfort. Finns: peaceful and quiet people, living in the perfect example of a social democracy functioning as it should. A tourist, or even a person who has lived here for a length of time, might well view Finland as such.

Fredagen den 4 april 1997, ett knappt halvår efter regeringsskiftet i Norge: Det har varit turbulenta tider för Birgitte Volter alltsedan hon övertog statsministerposten. Men nu är hon död. Hon har skjutits i huvudet. På sitt kontor, uppe på sextonde våningen i regeringsbyggnaden. Och frågan är: Vem är det egentligen som har blivit skjuten: är det statsministern, eller är det Birgitte, privatpersonen?

Det är inte vilka pensionärer som helst som hamnar i kampen mot extrem och ytterst välorganiserad brottslighet. Den ene är journalistveteranen Erik Ponti, den andre hans gamle vän från förr, den forne underrättelseofficeren Carl Hamilton. Till synes ett mycket omaka par, som det dock vore oklokt att underskatta. De hamnar snart i ett mycket händelserikt äventyr där inte bara livet står på spel.