Scandinavian Crime Novels – So Cold They’re Hot

A recent article in Booklist Magazine has sent me down the reading road to Scandinavian crime novels, which according them, is the hot new genre. The trend started in 1997 with Henning Mankell’s Faceless Killers and has grown slowly and steadily ever since. Of the 19 books mentioned in the article the library owns 13, not too bad considering we were not exactly aware that it was the “new, new” thing! But as I was reading What is Mine, by Norwegian author Anne Holt, I could completely understand the allure of Scandinavia as a setting for a murder and mayhem. Although liberal and pristine on the surface, the countries of the midnight sun spend half the year in semi darkness, being lashed by wind, freezing rain, and snow, which these writers take full advantage of in setting the mood in their novels. After months of relentless cold even happy souls turn short tempered and gloomy and as for those “borderliners,” well over the edge they go. I’m well onto my second, (out of a stack of four) Scandinavian serial killer thrillers, this one Swedish, and already the bodies are stacking up and the moods are turning bad so I know I won’t be disappointed.

You can check out our list of Scandinavian Crime Fiction by picking up a book mark at the Circulation Desk.