New York Times mentions three Scandinavian crime fiction books in it’s recent feature on Notable crime books of 2009:

The criminal motivation in Arnaldur Indridason’s ARCTIC CHILL (Minotaur, $24.99) can be traced to murderous racial prejudice against Asian immigrants in Iceland. Sex trafficking is the common theme of two high-impact Swedish thrillers: BOX 21 (Sarah Crichton/Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $26), by Anders Roslund and Borge Hellstrom, and THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE (Knopf, $25.95), by Stieg Larsson.

It’s great, of course, that Scandinavian books are mentioned on this list. And the books mentioned are good books. But I am actually disappointed that there was only 3 Scandinavian out of the 16 books mentioned. Whatever happened to the 2009 books by Karin Fossum, Camilla Läckberg, Hakan Nesser, Johan Theorin, Jo Nesbo, and the rest? And to other European writers?

To my mind, a far too American-centered list by New York Times. Too much xenofobia among the good folks in the Big Apple?