In Harri Nykanen’s Nights of Awe, two Arabs are killed in Helsinki. It’s not every day that two people are murdered in Helsinki. That Arabs are killed in Helsinki is extremely rare. Perhaps even stranger than this, however, is the fact that the police inspector assigned to the case, Ariel Kafka, is a Jew. He is one of the few Jews in Finland, and one of the even fewer Jews in Finland working in the police force.

The two Arabs have died violent deaths. The first was stabbed and shot to death, and had his nose and ears removed afterwards. The other died falling from a railway bridge while being chased by the two killers.

Inspector Ariel Kafka of the Helsinki Police Department Violent Crime Unit doesn’t know what to think of the cases. But he knows that he feels it is strange that the only Jewish police officer in the city is assigned a case like this during the high holy Nights of Awe between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. But this is Finland. Nobody cares about Jewish holy days or about Kafka being Jewish in the first place. It is assumed that he first of all is a Finnish police officer, and that other identities are secondary.

However, the two killings are just the beginning in the relatively violent Nights of Awe. Soon, Ariel is called to a car body shop where two more dead bodies await him. The case is quickly becoming a mass murder scenario. But who is doing this, and why? Is it money or drug related? There are clues leading in this direction, and there are people seemingly wanting Ari to believe so, but the facts don’t add up quite as nicely as Ari would like.

More and more it seems to Ariel that the murders somehow are “political”. And as he digs deeper, he begins to uncover evidence linking the homicides to terrorism. As he does, he increasingly feels that he is being watched by the Finnish Security Police on one hand and members of his synagogue on the other. What is going on?

Nights of Awe is an interesting and very good Finnish police procedural. Detective Ariel Kafka is an interesting character, but I feel he needs to be developed a little further to becomes really, really interesting. The plot of the book is very good, and the story is quite suspenseful. What I appreciated the most in Nights of Awe, were the intriguing, compelling and very good dialogues with their dark humor, along with the feeling of authenticity. The ending is good too. Overall, it’s a great Finnish crime fiction novel from Harri Nykanen, very different from the style in most Swedish crime fiction novels, for instance. Recommended!

“An outstanding plot, an entertaining read. Give us more Inspector Kafka novels from the far North.” — Fränkische Zeitung

“Unlike his Scandinavian contemporaries, Nykänen delights with an eccentric hero and a wonderful sense for dialogue. This is a tight thriller with an unexpected, explosive end.” — Hamburger Nachrichten

Link to books by Harri Nykanen at Amazon US and Amazon UK.

This fabulous crime fiction novel was deservedly awarded Best Swedish Crime Novel by the Swedish Academy of Crime in 2003. It’s a novel written in that very special, very critical, dwelling yet quite ironic and humorous style that has made its author, Leif GW Persson, one of the most beloved crime fiction writers in Scandinavia.

Again, we meet the main protagonist of Between Summer’s Longing and Winter’s End, the extraordinary Swedish detective Lars Martin Johansson. He is known in the Swedish police force as “the man who can see around corners”. He fortunately can’t, otherwise the series about him would be quite boring, I fear. Instead, he is a very logical and very persistent guy, who continues to work problems long after anyone with a little bit of sense would have given up; he’s a guy who thinks mostly outside the box. He has that uncanny, very disturbing ability to see the world around him the way it is rather than the way it is supposed to be.

Another Time, Another Life takes place in Sweden some time near the present, but involves two huge historical events: A terrorist attack on the German embassy in Sweden in 1975, and the fall of the Berlin Wall and the opening of the Stasi archives in Germany in 1989. It also involves a strange Swedish police investigation in 1989. So Another time, Another Life is a thriller spanning twenty-five years, and which is centered around and sheds some relatively interesting light on the still unsolved murder of Prime Minister Olof Palme in 1986.

In 1975, six young people took the entire staff of the West German embassy hostage, and demanded that the Baader-Meinhof members being held as prisoners in West Germany be released immediately. The siege ends with the deaths of two hostages and the wounding of several others, including the captors. How could it happen? Did somebody outside the embassy assist the terrorists? Who? How? Why?

In 1989 a Swedish civil servant is murdered, and the two leading detectives on the case, Anna Holt and Bo Jarnebring, find their investigation hastily shelved by an incompetent and possibly corrupt senior investigator, one Evert Bäckström – a cantankerous and prejudiced high- ranking police officer.

Now – in 1999, Lars Martin Johansson, who has just joined the Swedish Security Police in a leading position, decides to tie up a few loose ends left behind by his predecessor: specifically, two files on Swedes who had allegedly collaborated on the 1975 assault on the West German embassy, one of whom turned out to be the murder victim in 1989. So Johansson reopens the investigation and follows the leads of the old Holt/Jarnebring investigation. It quickly becomes evident that they take him quickly up the Swedish political ladder, right to the top…

Another Time, Another Life is a marvelous crime fiction novel. It has a very intelligently constructed plot, very rich characters, and is told in a slow, delightful pace – just right for the story. Leif GW Persson spins a fascinating yarn and along the way shares with his readers a large number of cynical, delightfully wicked and very humorous observations. This is an elegant, smart Scandinavian crime fiction novel that is borderline spectacular, and which I am sure will have a very long half-life!

Links to books by Leif GW Persson at Amazon US, Amazon UK, and Amazon CAN.

The Flatey Enigma (original title Flateyjargáta) is an intriguing and quite original Icelandic crime fiction novel by the very accomplished (but relatively unknown in the English-speaking countries) author Viktor Arnar Ingolfsson. The action in the book is set in 1960, when some islanders living on the small island of Flatey, on the west coast of Iceland, find a decomposing body while on a seal-hunting trip to the nearby island of Ketilsey.

Viktor Arnar Ingolfsson (see image on right), born in Akureyri in the north of Iceland on April 12, 1955, is one of Iceland’s most accomplished crime fiction authors. His novel House of Evidence was nominated for the Glass Key — the Nordic Crime Novel Award — in 2001, and The Flatey Enigma were nominated for the same prize in 2004. Viktor Arnar has published six mysteries, the fifth of which, Daybreak in 2005, was the basis for the Icelandic TV series Hunting Men, which premiered in 2008.

The principal character in The Flatey Enigma is a young man named Kjartan, who is just starting in a job as a magistrate’s assistant, and who is sent over from the mainland to supervise the collection of the body and to find the identity of the corpse. It is not quite clear whether there is any foul play involved or whether the death is the result of an accident.

However, when a second body is found on the little island with its less than three dozen inhabitants, there is little doubt that a crime has been committed: The body has been severely mutilated, and given a Viking “blood eagle” – a number of ribs on the back of the body have been cut loose from the spine and bent out to the side so they appear as small wings, and the lungs have been pulled out through the holes and spread out on the back of the body.

The deaths appear somehow to have some relationship to a very old mystery with origins in a famous Icelandic book of the Viking age; the early mediaeval Book of Flatey. More specifically, the murders seem to have some connection with a puzzle – an enigma – consisting of 40 questions, the first 39 of which must be correctly answered to reveal the 40th answer and the key to the mystery that has been constructed from the text.

The Flatey Enigma is an interesting, very evocative and very Scandinavian crime fiction novel. The descriptions of the life of the islanders and the functioning of the small island community far out in the Atlantic ocean is very fascinating in itself – it is, after all – most likely a way of life that is now forever gone. In addition, the book contains two very well constructed mysteries that are very compelling and puzzling. The characters are quite good too, and as the plot progresses we start to see that there is much more to them then what is visible at the beginning – and as we do, the plot thickens and the suspense builds. I liked this novel, and recommend it – The Flatey Enigma will keep you guessing!

Links to books by Viktor Arnar Ingolfsson at Amazon US, Amazon UK, and Amazon CAN.

Vanished is the third book in Swedish crime fiction author Liza Marklund’s excellent series about news reporter Annika Bengtzon – following The Bomber and Studio Sex (aka Exposed). It has previously been published as Paradise, but has been retranslated and republished as Vanished. The improvement in language is, in my opinion, quite noticeable.

We meet Annika Bengtzon in the wake of the hardships she suffered in Exposed. The action in Vanished takes place about two years later. She is still trying to piece her life back together following the violent death of her fiancé. She now works night shifts as a copy editor in the Evening Post. As we catch up with her, she is finishing off a successful job involving a hurricane that has swept across Sweden, leaving chaos in its wake.

Now, two men lie dead in Stockholm harbor, shot in the head. And a young woman runs for her life from a relentless, invisible killer. Also, a cargo of cigarettes, worth 50 million Swedish kroner has disappeared.

Annika is contacted by a lady who wants her to write about a new private foundation called Paradise. Paradise is dedicated to helping people that need to disappear, and the lady turns out to be its founder. Paradise claims to be able to wipe people’s records, make them untraceable, and – if need be – even relocate them to a different country and set them up there. It sounds very interesting, and for Annika, covering the story of Paradise may well be just the break she needs.

However, when Annika meets the woman, Aida, who is trying to run away from the Mafioso behind the cigarette smuggling, she gives her the secret telephone number to Paradise in order to help her hide. Big mistake! A few days later the woman is murdered, and Annika is starting to realize that Paradise may be something very different from what she initially thought. With another life on her conscience, Annika sets out on a dangerous journey to find the truth about Paradise.

The main plot in Vanished is exciting and tense. The side stories about Annika Bengtzon‘s private life – both her family life and her new romance – are woven nicely into the main story. Vanished is also written with lots of passion, energy and force by Liza Marklund, and the story is fast-paced and intriguing, with nice twists and turns. I like this book a lot – I am fascinated by Annika Bengtzon, who is a very interesting and compelling crime fiction heroine – and I also find the way Liza Marklund builds suspense to be excellent.

Vanished is a great crime novel, very entertaining, and one that I strongly recommend!

Links to books by Liza Marklund at Amazon US,
Amazon UK (books and DVD’s), and Amazon CAN. See also our review of the movie based on this novel.

The third novel in James Thompson’s series about the very Finnish Helsinki police Inspector Kari Vaara, Helsinki White, has arrived. It takes place in Helsinki soon after the conclusion of the previous novel, Lucifer’s Tears.

Life is rough for Inspector Vaara. He is a hero now – the media turned him into a big national hero after the events in the previous novel. Kari himself – ridden by the eternal guilt that plagues all Finns – isn’t so sure that he deserves that. He has not been able to protect those who mattered to him. However, that’s how it is. No point pondering it.

Especially not now: He has a tumor in his brain that he needs to have removed. Also, his boss Jyri sweet-talks him into accepting a special assignment; Kari is to be the boss of a new black ops unit directly under Jyri and the Ministry of Internal Affairs:

“You’re a failure to yourself. You’ve failed everyone you’ve touched. You’ll take this job to make up for it. I’m offering you everything you ever wanted.”

With the splitting headache caused by the tumor pumping in his head, Kari Vaara buys into Jyri’s wild scheme, and soon finds himself running a heist gang on behalf of crooked and corrupt police bosses and politicians. On his side are his two cronies, the scary psychotic genius Milo, who loves guns and shooting, and the baby-faced behemoth Sweetness, who commits violence without even thinking about it and without emotion. They become his personal henchmen. So instead of becoming the man he wants to be – a trustable man who promotes law and order and protects the weak – Inspector Vaara now turns into a violent master of black underground shakedowns.

When he finally is assigned a “real” case, it’s one that is very much in the eye of the public. An anti-racist public official has been beheaded, and so far only her head has been found. Vaara gets the case because the public needs to see that Finland’s best is working the case; that the authorities really do their utmost to solve the crime. It’s a hot potato: Race and ethnicity are for the first time becoming issues in the historically heterogeneous Finnish society. and racism is on the rise.

Also, it quickly becomes clear that his case is linked to an earlier, very high-profile case involving the kidnapping and murder of the children of a well known racist and billionaire…

The plot is rich and interesting, and Thompson’s writing is outstanding. I have to say that I felt this book to be a little less “Finnish” than the previous ones – Thompson’s plot with corrupt policemen and politicians feels more American that Finnish to me. Also, while Helsinki White is good and kept me reading, it is not quite as suspenseful as the previous two books. Even so, it is a crime fiction novel well worth reading, and I am looking forward to the fourth installment in the series.

Links to books by James Thompson at Amazon US and Amazon UK

The sixth and most recent novel in Swedish writer Ake Edwardson’s terrific series about the fashion conscious, high brow Chief Inspector Erik Winter of the Gothenburg police is here! Sail of stone (Segel av sten) is a wonderful police procedural, which follows in the footsteps of successes like Frozen Tracks, Death Angels and The Shadow Women. In focus in this novel are Erik Winter and African-Swedish detective Aneta Djanali, both smart, introspective and very thoughtful detectives.

As we follow the two detectives while they work on two separate cases, Ake Edwardson takes us deep into their minds and lays bare their psychological make-ups in a highly intriguing fashion. Fascinating as the cases are, this dive into the psyches of these two very-well drawn characters, is masterfully executed by Edwardson, and is in some ways perhaps even more spell-binding than the very professional and intelligent police work they do in working their respective cases. It is interesting to see how Edwardson lets Winter and Djanali be guided and assisted by intuition.

Erik Winter’s case concerns the missing father of a lady that he once had an intense love affair with, Johanna Osvald. Her father, Axel Osvald, has – strangely – traveled to Scotland to search for his own father. It is a very peculiar and odd tale. Why travel to Scotland to look for a man who died there during World War II? And – is Axel really missing? Winter allows himself to get drawn into this strange mystery and unravel the secrets buried in the past of the family of his former lover. To solve this mystery he will have to enlist the aid of an old friend in the Scotland Yard and visit hidden places deep in the Scottish fjords.

Aneta, on the other hand, pursues a reluctant victim of domestic abuse – Annette Lindsten – that she has a very hard time finding. She meets the alleged abuser – the quite frightening lover Hans Forsblad, as well as the victim’s father and mother. But where is the victim? Why isn’t anyone talking or helping her – not even the parents? The case has hard to pinpoint aspects that somehow are very frightening to Aneta – resonating with old, deeply buried fears in a very unpleasant manner.

Sail of Stone is an outstanding character study, very perceptive and excellently written. The plot is rich and deep, and the pacing is on the spot throughout. A pearl!

Links to books by Ake Edwardson at Amazon US, Amazon UK, and Amazon CAN.

Norwegian crime fiction writer Anne Holt has recently been nominated for the 2012 Edgar Award for Best Novel, for her very good “closed room” mystery 1222. This, of course, is a huge honor, and yet another confirmation of the popularity that Scandinavian crime fiction enjoys for the moment.

Here is the full list of nominated novels:

• The Ranger by Ace Atkins
• Gone by Mo Hayder
• The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino
• 1222 by Anne Holt
• Field Gray by Philip Kerr

It is perhaps also especially delightful for the Norwegians – as we all know, they compete more than a little with the Swedes (about more or less everything you can imagine), and as Jo Nesbø was nominated for the Edgar last year, this was the second time a Norwegian has been nominated. And – sweet – no Swedes in sight

We congratulate Anne Holt and Norway, and cheer for Anne when the winners will be announced at the Edgar Awards ceremony on April 26th.

Sergeant Gunna – Gunnhildur Gísladóttir – of the Icelandic police is back! The interesting, stubborn heroine of Frozen Assets returns in author Quentin Bates’ follow-up appropriately entitled Cold Comfort.

However, it is not quite the same Gunna as we met in the first book in this new series. Gunna has now been promoted to the Serious Crimes Unit in Reykjavik, Iceland. Also, I get the feeling that she is getting a little more urbane in her ways and slightly less ugly. However, I don’t really know if that just is my perception of her or if Quentin Bates is doing a little job of slightly altering her image behind the scenes. Be that as it may – whatever the cause, I find that I like Gunna even more in the second book!

Thirty-seven year old Gunnhildur (in Iceland one uses first names) works two cases in this book. The first and more important involves the murder of a busty former beauty queen, television show participant and minor celebrity who is now a fitness instructor. Why was the sexy ex-beauty queen Svana Geirs killed? Svana Geirs “must have pissed someone off, or else she’d ripped someone off.”

The second involves a violent, tough guy named Long Ommi who for some reason has chosen to run away from prison at a point in time when he has almost completed his sentence, and who now seems to be going around settling accounts with people who have crossed him in the past. He is a very violent man, and his methods are quite worthy of a Viking. But why does he do this now? Why not just wait a little longer?

The tough and hard-working Gunna focuses on the murder case and slowly makes progress. It seems the dead beauty queen was involved in some relatively unusual arrangements, but it is hard to see why they should provide motivation for murder? However, as the investigation moves forward it becomes evident that there may be a connection between the two cases. In the process, we learn much about Icelandic society and meet shady characters both from upstairs and downstairs, and enjoy Gunna’s ability to see them as they are, despite their differences.

Cold Comfort is a good, suspenseful police procedural that is very evocative. Quentin Bates – an English writer who has lived ten or so years in Iceland– has managed to penetrate deep into the soul of the Icelander and is very good at portraying it. I especially like his characterizations – mostly very vivid – and his very good and intelligent dialogue.

Cold Comfort is also a smartly plotted, very authentic and icy cold crime fiction from Iceland, that little esoteric Scandinavian pearl far out in the middle of the cold North Atlantic. A very enjoyable read with a heroine that is fresh, different, intelligent, and fascinating. Gunna is a great addition to the list of Scandinavian heroines!

Links to books by Quentin Bates at Amazon US, Amazon UK, and Amazon CAN.

It’s been interesting to follow the revival of Lisbeth Salander and the excellent Millennium trilogy by the deceased Swedish writer Stieg Larsson lately. The release of the Hollywood remake of The Girl With the Dragoon Tattoo has – not surprisingly – led to renewed interest in the books as well.

Currently all three books – The Girl with the Dragoon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest – are on the New York Times list of combined print and e-book fiction. They still seem to sell extremely well, even after having been on the bestseller lists for eons: The Girl With the Dragoon Tattoo has been on the Mass Market best seller list for 137 weeks so far!

While it is difficult to establish a set of clear criteria for quality for literature in general and perhaps even more so for thrillers and crime fiction, I tend to think  the fact that a book stays on the bestseller lists for a long time, and perhaps also that it makes it onto bestseller lists in many different countries, can at least be viewed as indicators of quality. For the moment, Stieg Larsson’s books seem to be on the bestseller lists many, many places: US, UK, Australia to mention some. By this measure, the Millennium trilogy scores fairly high; few – if any – books outshine them as far as longevity and spread as bestsellers are concerned.

Of well – be that as it may – I am extremely happy to see that so many still find pleasure in these wonderful books. May they enjoy a long and prosperous half-life!

Links to Stieg Larsson’s books at Amazon US, Amazon UK, and Amazon CAN.

Midwinter Sacrifice is the first book in a new series of Swedish crime fiction. This series, written by Mons Kallentoft, introduces a unique and very interesting Swedish detective: Malin Fors of the Linköping police.

Malin Fors is an intriguing and complex heroine – she is tough, has had serious problems in her marriage and is now divorced. She also has a problematic relationship with her daughter, and tends to drink too much. She is mostly unbalanced and on the edge. I tend to think of her as a blend: one part Irene Huss, one part Inspector Winter and one part Harry Hole. She is talented, ambitious, tough, smart and unpredictable. She listens and ponders:

‘An investigation consists of a mass of voices, the sort you can hear, and the sort you can’t. You have to listen to the soundless voices, Malin. That’s where the truth is hidden.’

In Midwinter Sacrifice, a man is found hanging in a tree in the middle of the winter in Sweden. He is very beaten up and was most likely murdered, possibly in a ritual of some kind. We follow Malin Fors as she doggedly investigates this difficult case, first seeking to determine the identity of the deceased. Then the investigation progresses into the life of the murdered man – including his very strange and tangled relationships. He was, it seems, a bit of a loner and a man harassed by many and liked by few.

The investigation is thorough and very interesting to read. Midwinter Sacrifice in some ways may be viewed as opening up and shining a light on the inner workings of a seemingly peaceful social democratic and egalitarian Swedish small town; it shows the hidden life under the picturesque surface. Gradually the investigation reveals that the dead man was much damaged and that he played a role in an earlier, very tragic event. We also learn more about a group of strange, quite destitute people living outside the city.

The author uses supernatural-like elements to great effect in this book. I usually don’t like “whispering voices” or similar devices in crime fiction books, but this, I suppose, is a matter of taste. Mons Kallentoft writes these sequences in a different prose, and creates effects that are peculiar, esoteric, and almost dreamlike.

I liked the book – it is an intriguing exploration of evil; this is not a new theme in crime fiction exactly, but Kallentoft manages to penetrate deep enough into its origins and into some pretty cold hearts to make the plot plausible. The investigation is very interesting and the ending quite satisfactory and very suspenseful.
Moreover, Kallentoft is an outstanding writer, and the translation is excellent too. Also, the character descriptions are very good, and his descriptions of the settings and the wintery Swedish landscape very evocative. So, as you understand, I enjoyed Midwinter Sacrifice and I also very much enjoyed reading about Malin Fors. She is an interesting character that I look forward to meeting again!

Reviews of Midwinter Sacrifice:

“Mons Kallentoft has realized that the language in a mystery story does not have to be one-dimensional and totally focused on suspense. His first novel about Linköping police officer Malin Fors is definitely one of this spring’s highlights.” — Svenska Dagbladet

“The action takes place in Linköping, a town surrounded by snow-covered plains that could have come from the Coen Brothers movie, Fargo, although with different overtones. (…). Kallentoft shifts the perspective ever so slightly, to a different language, a different mood. Only just enough so that one feels lost. It’s a new territory, that Linköping where Malin Fors lives.” —
Lotta Olsson, Dagens Nyheter

“More very impressive input from another Scandinavian writer with something refreshingly different to say and with a different way of saying it . . . the background of Sweden in the grip of a cruel and punishing winter is brought vividly to the page. His illustration of the complex character of his heroine is also impressive . . . An impressive book.” —Tangled Web

Links to books by Mons Kallentoft at Amazon US, Amazon UK, and Amazon CAN.