The Best of Nordic Noir

If you’re a Scandi crime lover, you’ll be thrilled by the 2016 Petrona Award shortlist, just announced. Or maybe you just really liked Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy and have been eager to take your reading beyond Mankell and Nesbo. So authors honoured by the Petrona Award with its chilling snowflake logo could be a good place to begin. Here are some of the titles shortlisted that you can find at Hastings District Libraries:

The Drowned Boy by Karin Fossum

In Norway, Fossum is queen of Nordic Noir and has won awards for her Inspector Sejer series featuring one of the genre’s more mild mannered and polite detectives. Social awareness, inequality and the lasting effects of crime on vicitims are some of the recurring themes in her work. In this novel, Sejer must investigate the death of an 18-month-old child whose mother’s story doesn’t quite stack up.

The Caveman by Jorn Lier Horst

Sticking with the Norwegians, Horst  is a former policeman turned whodunit author. His police detective, William Wisting, is another crime fighter with a conscience plus an understanding for the dark side of human nature. In The Caveman, Wisting investigates the lonely death of a neighbour whose body was not discovered for four months.

Dark As My Heart by Antti Tuomainen

Journalist turned novelist Antti Tuomainen had a big hit with his third novel The Healer, winning a Clue Award in his home country of Finland. Dark As My Heart tells the story of a man searching for justice over the disappearance of his mother thirteen years before. It has been described as Hitchcockian in its plotting with shades of a modern Greek tragedy. The bleak but stunning Finnish countryside makes its presence felt in the background.

The Girl in the Spider’s Web by David Lagercrantz

Picking up where the late Stieg Larsson left off with his Millennium trilogy was always going to be a tall order, but David Lagercrantz seems to have pulled it off with panache. In the new book, Blomkvist is contacted by a specialist in A.I. who disregards a warning his life is in danger, begging Millennium to publish his story. Super-hacker, Lisbeth Salamander, also a target of cyber gangsters, gets caught up in the same conspiracy. Lagercrantz is a superb writer, so this must be a strong contender.




Catalogue links: 
The Drowned Boy
The Caveman
Dark As My Heart
The Girl in the Spider's Web

More about the Petrona Award