Diction, a translation service based in Copenhagen has created an infographic showing the ten most translated Danish authors. Hans Christian Andersen tops the list. A bit further down, crime fiction fans will see a a familiar name . . .
I imagine we may someday see other crime fiction authors making the grade. (Jussi Adler-Olsen? Sara Blaedel?) I wonder who where Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö or Henning Mankel or even Camilla Läckberg might appear on a similar Swedish list – or Arnaldur Indriðason for Icelandic translations.
And now onto a variety of reviews appearing in recent months . . .
Becky who reads a lot of books and is part Finnish enjoyed The Exiled by Kati Hiekkapelto and hopes more books in this series will be turned into audio books. In 
particular she found the protagonist to be a “great character.” (I read it, too, and quite a lot of the story sticks with me as the Serbian woman who now works as a police detective in Finland goes home, has her purse stolen, and gets into a lot of trouble as she insists on finding out more than the local police want to know about the Roma people they despise and the refugees who aren’t wanted. It makes for an interesting commentary on Finnish culture, too, as the protagonist contrasts her Finnish assumptions with her homeland’s.)
Cathy at Kittling Books thought the prologue to Karo Hämäläinen’s Cruel is the Night was fantastic. Alas, the rest of the book did not appeal to her, given what she found were unlikable characters and a glacial pace. She hopes you might feel differently (though I admit, I didn’t care for it either).
She had similar issues with Agnete Friis’s What My Body Remembers – a slow pace and a character who doesn’t endear herself to the reader. (I quite liked the book, but Cathy had encountered one too many unlikable protagonists in a row.)
Margaret Cannon, who reviews mysteries for the Toronto Globe & Mail, had feelings closer to mine about Agnete Friis’s novel. “This is an excellent character study of a woman in extreme crisis,” she concludes.
At Euro Crime, reviewer Lynn Harvey introduces us to the first crime novel by a Danish journalist with a British connection – Fatal Crossing by Lone Theils. She deems it “an accomplished and exciting crime novel” that kept her up all night. Raven also gives the book a thumbs-up review, writing “With an intriguingly dark, well-plotted investigation, and the shadow of a notorious serial killer looming large within Sand’s quest for the truth, there were enough twists and tension to keep me reading.”
Raven has also read the latest by Kjell Ola Dahl, Faithless, and deems it “flawlessly plotted, with a beautifully nuanced translation” and urges us all to pick it up immediately.
Carrying on with her Scandinavian reading selections, she finds Gunnar Staalesen’s Wolves in the Dark quite stunning if darker than the previous books in this long-running series.
Staalesen’s Where Roses Never Die was the recipient of the 2017 Petrona Award, and Bernadette at Reactions to Reading says it’s well-deserved, even if PI sleuths in the American hard-boiled tradition aren’t generally her favorite. “Everything else about the book was terrific . . . Staalesen does a great job of peeling away the layers of secrecy that might easily build up in any group of people and result in an impossible to predict disaster.” Kerrie who reads mysteries in paradise (which is located not far from where Bernadette shares her reading reactions) also gives it a strong review. Obviously I must catch up on this series.
Bernadette found herself “completely hooked” by Yrsa Sigurðardóttir’s standalone, Why 
Did You Lie, in which the author subtly builds suspense as three seemingly separate plot strands develop toward connections.
There’s lots of suggestion and doubt and misdirection too so that even the savviest of crime fiction readers will not be able to predict everything that happens . . . The psychological thriller label is used too often but in the case of WHY DID THEY LIE? it is apt. It is unsettling rather than bump-in-the-night scary but that’s just what I like.
This book is going right on my TBR list just as I’m reminded that Bernadette is one of the best reviewers on the planet.
Of course, it helps that our tastes align so well. She had very much the same reaction as mine to Samuel Bjork’s I’m Travelling Alone” which to her “seemed as if it had been penned by someone more familiar with a “10 tips for great thriller writing” checklist than actual crime fiction of the kind I like.” The difference is that she had the stamina to actually finish it, whereas I bailed early.
But no worries – I now have a list of several books to add to my TBR, and hope you discover some, too.
Scandinavian Crime Fiction 