Scandinavian Fiction

Magic and myth inhabit these chapters in figures both familiar and strange. Giant trolls and talking animals are everywhere. The winds take human form. A one-eyed old woman might seem reminiscent of the Norse god Odin. We meet sly aunts, resourceful princesses, and devious robbers. These stories, set in Norway's majestic landscape of towering mountains and dense forests, are filled with humor, mischief, and sometimes surprisingly cruel twists of fate. All are rendered in the deceptively simple narrative style perfected by Asbjørnsen and Moe.

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....

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.

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.

Asle is an aging painter and widower who lives alone on the west coast of Norway. His only friends are his neighbor, Åsleik, a traditional fisherman-farmer, and Beyer, a gallerist who lives in the city. There, in Bjørgvin, lives another Asle, also a painter but lonely and consumed by alcohol. Asle and Asle are doppelgängers-two versions of the same person, two versions of the same life. Written in melodious and hypnotic "slow prose,"

January in Gotland. The days are short, the air is cold, and all the roads are covered in snow. On a deserted, icy backroad, these wintery conditions will soon bring together a group of strangers with a force devastating enough to change their lives forever when, in the midst of a brief period, a deadly accident and two separate crimes leave victims in their wake. Four years later, a single phone call is all it takes to bring back the terror of that day and to set in motion a plot for revenge.

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.

The Prose Edda and the Poetic Edda are our oldest written sources for Norse mythology. When it comes to the norse myths, they are the closest thing we have to listening these stories as the vikings actually told them, around those ancient campfires so long ago. It is my hope that you will enjoy this collection, and that the two books will work in tandem to broaden and deepen your appreciation for these epic and mystical stories, and the enigmatic culture that spawned them.

Jon Fosse said farewell to theory early in his career, choosing poetry, fiction, and drama as his mediums of choice. Here, however, in a selection from his two books of essays, we see just how incisive a critic and memoirist he can be. Not only including a generous portion of Fosse's writing on literature and theater—including the irresistible "Thomas Bernhard and His Grandfather"—this collection also includes such personal essays such as "My Dear New Norwegian," "Old Houses," and "He Who Didn't Want to Become a Teacher."

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....

La joven pareja formada por la escritora Erica y el detective Patrik disfrutan de unas merecidas vacaciones en la pequeña población costera de Fjällbacka. Erica está embarazada de ocho meses y el calor sofocante del verano vuelve especialmente difícil este último mes de gestación. La última cosa que necesita la joven pareja es un nuevo caso de asesinatos, pero el malhumorado comisario Mellberg le comunica a Patrik que un niño ha encontrado el cadáver de una mujer mientras jugaba.

Plus au nord que le nord, il y a : le Groenland. Une terre glacée, balayée par les vents, inaccessible sur la majeure partie de son territoire. Et qui recèle pourtant les histoire les plus sombres. C'est au travers du destin d'une femme que tout se joue. Elle porte en elle les déchirures et la soif de vengeance d'un pays. Elle est l'Inuite. Face à elle, deux flics, l'un groenlandais, l'autre danois, mènent chacun leur enquête : les meurtres récents d'un grand-père et de sa petite-fille sur une île isolée; et un scandale d'État qui remonte aux années 1950.

Born in 1150 to a noble Swedish family and coming of age at a monastery under the tutelage of a Cistercian monk and a former Knight Templar, young Arn Magnusson is sent to fulfill his destiny beyond the cloister walls. But the world awaiting him is a place at odds with his monastic ways. And when the murder of a king engulfs Western Götaland into a whirlwind of intrigue and ruthless power plays, headstrong and naive Arn is forced to leave the woman he loves behind and take up arms to battle infidels in the Holy Land.

Iceland, 1956. Fifteen-year-old Lára spends the summer working for a couple on the small island of Videy, just off the coast of Reykjavík. In early August, the girl disappears without a trace. The mystery becomes Iceland's greatest unsolved case. What happened to the young girl? Is she still alive? Did she leave the island, or did something happen to her there? Thirty years later in August, 1986, as the city of Reykjavík celebrates its 200th anniversary, journalist Valur Robertsson begins his own investigation into Lara's case.

Nina Borg, a Red Cross nurse, wife, and mother of two, is a compulsive do-gooder who can’t say no when someone asks for help—even when she knows better. When her estranged friend Karin leaves her a key to a public locker in the Copenhagen train station, Nina gets suckered into her most dangerous project yet.

Four nuns and a fifth woman, a visitor to Africa, are killed in a savage nighttime attack. Months later in Sweden, the news of the unexplained tragedy sets off a cruel vengeance for these killings. Inspector Kurt Wallander is home from an idyllic holiday in Rome, full of energy and plans for the future. Autumn settles in, and Wallander prays the winter will be peaceful. But when he investigates the disappearance of an elderly birdwatcher, he discovers a gruesome and meticulously planned murder - a body impaled in a trap of sharpened bamboo poles.

It’s the right time for love, but is it the right place? Following her husband's untimely passing, Martha's life revolves around their daughter, Rosie. But with Rosie leaving the nest and Martha's job in jeopardy, she feels life slipping away. On a whim, fueled by a love for Scandi-noir dramas, Martha travels to Denmark. Amidst its charming landscapes, she's drawn to the serene island of Fano where she meets the handsome Lars.

¿Puede un terrible hecho del pasado seguir teniendo consecuencias devastadoras? Cuando una botella que contiene un mensaje escrito con sangre humana llega al Departamento Q, el subcomisario Carl Mørck y sus asistentes Assad y Rose logran descifrar algunas palabras de lo que fue la última señal de vida de dos chicos desaparecidos en los años noventa. Pero ¿por qué su familia nunca denunció su desaparición? Carl Mørck intuye que no se trata de un caso aislado y que el criminal podría seguir actuando con total impunidad.

In den frühen Morgenstunden machen Krabbenfischer eine grausige Entdeckung. Auf einem Kutter wurde ein Achtzehnjähriger brutal ermordet. Doch wer hat den beliebten Teenager getötet? Hauptkommissar Mikkel Tvorsen und sein Team sind ratlos, denn es gibt weder Spuren am Tatort noch ein Motiv, geschweige denn einen Verdächtigen. Als sich mehr und mehr herauskristallisiert, dass der Täter einer der trauernden Freunde oder eines der schockierten Familienmitglieder sein muss, sind die Ermittler endgültig in einer Sackgasse gelandet. Mikkel weiß nicht, ob er seinem Instinkt noch trauen kann.

El verano llega a su fin y la escritora Erica Falck vuelve al trabajo tras la baja de maternidad. Ahora le toca a su compañero, el comisario Patrik Hedström, tomarse un tiempo libre para ocuparse de la pequeña Maja. Pero el crimen no descansa nunca, ni siquiera en la tranquila ciudad de Fjällbacka, y cuando dos adolescentes descubren el cadáver de Erik Frankel, Patrik compaginará el cuidado de su hija con su interés por el asesinato de este historiador especializado en la Segunda Guerra Mundial.