Sorted on book title (not in series order)
Take one gloriously grumpy central protagonist, add that train crash, include a massive snowstorm cutting off a train full of people 1222 metres above sea level in an inaccessible hotel, add a mysterious locked carriage and a group of shadowy unknown passengers, then kill off a high-profile...Read more
HARRY IS OUT OF HIS DEPTH.
Detective Harry Hole is meant to keep out of trouble. A young Norwegian girl taking a gap year in Sydney has been murdered, and Harry has been sent to Australia to assist in any way he can.
HE'S NOT SUPPOSED TO GET TOO INVOLVED....Read more
Another one of those periodical restarts of a favourite series, some of which actually get off the ground, some of which linger in the piles of unread books, mostly due to lack of time / organisation (which I'm working on).
THE BAT is the first of the Harry Hole series, which...Read more
THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT appeals - not so much because it's a tight and involving mystery, or that there is a sense of an investigation and a resolution - but because of the characters, and in particular Igi, and in an odd way a dead young woman and a dead father. In the aftermath of her...Read more
The 11th Inspector Sejer novel from Karin Fossum, specialising again in the why of a crime. Why in this instance is a series of very big questions. Why did a young toddler end up dead in a pond near his house? Why did nobody think that secure fencing would be necessary for any child that...Read more
Having had the urge to try BorrowBox from our Library system recently, I happened upon the first three books in the Doggerland series by Maria Adolfsson - FATAL ISLES (2018), WILD SHORES (2019) and CRUEL TIDES (2020). It looks like there are three more books that haven't yet been translated...Read more
Adam Stubo and Johanne Vik are a couple that met in an earlier book in this series by Scandinavian writer Anne Holt. Vik is a profiler with a prickly nature, and a complicated past. Stubo is a Police Superintendent with a gentler, kinder nature and a tragic background. Vik is hard to...Read more
I WILL FIND THE KEY is one of those random choices that a reader browsing the library's audio book selection late at night can make, with absolutely no idea what they are getting into, or even why the choice was made.
Set in Sweden, the story features a private investigator by...Read more
The first book in a series by Norwegian author Heine Bakkeid, I WILL MISS YOU TOMORROW was released in 2016 with at least 5 books in total in the series, the first two available in translation. The stories revolve around Thorkild Aske, a disgraced ex-policeman, he's fresh out of prison and...Read more
'Watch out Jo Nesbo!' is printed in a bright red circle on the front of I'M TRAVELLING ALONE. It seemed like a rather brave claim to be making before starting this book, and bordering on rash having now finished it.
The characterisations are reasonably good. There's a...Read more
I'm now firmly of the opinion that it takes real skill to stuff up the order of a series to the extent that I seem to manage to do it. One day I'll find a use for that skill, but nowadays it just means I spend my life staring at piles of books thinking, oh buggeration, there's another one I...Read more
Firstly, it has to be said - the book blurb doesn't do Reich any favours and if he was a real person he'd have every right to be slightly miffed about the description of himself as boorish. Sure he's a little stiff and formal in the early part of the book, but that's all it is - he's not...Read more
The Hanne Wilhelmsen series from Norwegian author Anne Holt is fabulous, even if it is being translated out of sequence. Which means in THE LION'S MOUTH, Wilhelmsen, who doesn't make an appearance until later in the novel and is not the central investigator anyway, is also walking around....Read more
THE MAN FROM BEIJING is a standalone book from the author of the popular Kurt Wallender series, and if the discussions I've seen about it are any indication, it's guaranteed to polarise opinion.
Set in Hesjövallen, where something very very bad has happened, police are called...Read more
If they are giving out an award for the most unexpected crime fiction novel, then THE MAN WHO DIED would have to be an odds on favourite.
Narrated by Jaakko Kaunismaa, this is the story of a Finnish mushroom entrepreneur, based in a small town, building a successful business...Read more
I'm still dipping into this reprint series from Harper Perennial with a profound sense of gratitude for the fact that they are bringing these fabulous books back to our attention. Originally copyrighted in 1966 THE MAN WHO WENT UP IN SMOKE sees the only time Wahloo and Sjowall take Martin...Read more
MASTER, LIAR, TRAITOR, FRIEND is the third in the Swedish Leo Junker series, a set of books which hopefully all fans of Scandinavian crime fiction are aware of.
Up there with the very best of Scandinavian crime fiction, partly it's the interweaving of the past and present into...Read more
I've read MERCY (aka THE KEEPER OF LOST CAUSES) by Jussi Adler-Olsen twice now and finally I think I've got it the review straight in my head.
Why twice? The first time I read this book was right in the middle of a series of releases based around the woman locked in the...Read more
The preoccupation for Scandinavian crime fiction of many readers is sometimes questioned. One response is to get people to read Karin Fossum's Inspector Konrad Sejer series. Within the one series, Fossum is able to shift the perspective, analyse the reasons why, explore the outcomes and...Read more
I'm behind with this series, and heartily confused about the order in which to read them. But this fortuitous find in a neglected stack of purchased books, is blurbed as the "long-awaited sequel to 1222". Which I did really enjoy. It's also listed as the 9th Hanne Wilhelmsen novel, but I do...Read more
After finishing THE MAN WHO DIED in almost record time, PALM BEACH FINLAND was recommended in the highest possible terms, so the audio version of it was obtained and listened to with haste. Another one that should have come with a warning about driving and listening, because I don't know...Read more
If ever there was a book that shows that the Best Swedish Crime Novel award needs to be closely followed, QUICKSAND is it. Scandinoir remains one of the big things in worldwide crime fiction, but, as you'd expect, there can sometimes be a little sameness to the sub genre. Which is not...Read more
I've had this tradition for the last few years that my first favourite book of the year pops up in January. Well that's for the last two years anyway - The Broken Shore by Peter Temple and then Diamond Dove by Adrian Hyland. Breaking the tradition slightly, as Frode Grytten is Norwegian...Read more
Monica, is a successful, well regarded surgeon and physician who is ashamed of something in her past. She can't develop any meaningful relationships with anyone and pushes anyone who gets close quickly away.
Maj-Britt, hiding from the world behind an endless supply of food,...Read more
Because SILENCE is the second of the Detective Kimmo Joentaa series, I read it third. (Rebellious you may well think, not paying attention is a much better explanation).
One of the things that I most love about these three books - ICE MOON, SILENCE and THE WINTER OF THE LIONS...Read more
Brief commentary, rather than a full review.
Read for our f2f bookclub, every book by Jo Nesbø reminds you to read the rest of the series.
It's partially the way that the balance between atmosphere, plot and character is maintained so elegantly. It's partially the...Read more
Mons Kallentoft is not making any bones about using the weather conditions as a feature in his books - MIDWINTER SACRIFICE, and now SUMMERTIME DEATH. Given that temperatures of 45º+ aren't exactly record breaking in these parts, it's a real testament to the way that this book is written...Read more
Erik Winter is the youngest chief inspector in Sweden. He's quite the snappy dresser, an intuitive if slightly moody cop, consumed with his job and with his very pregnant girlfriend. When his father has a massive heart attack in Spain, he is pulled away from his job to spend a little time...Read more
Originally published in Norway in 1995, Gunnar Staalesen's The Writing on The Wall is set in Bergen Norway in the early '90s. Private Eye Varg Veum returns from the funeral of his ex-wife's most recent husband to find the distressed mother of missing 16 year old girl Torild waiting to see...Read more