Nordic noir (or Scandinavian noir) is best known to the US reading public through the work of the late Swedish author Stieg Larsson. The trilogy posthumously launched in 2005 with the publication of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (titled Men Who Hate Women in the original Swedish) sold tens of...
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Here you’ll find my (admittedly incomplete) guide to the most outstanding detective series set in countries all across the world. It’s a work in progress. Expect to see more added here from time to time. Below I’ve listed 30 outstanding detective series set outside the United States....
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Estimated reading time: 6 minutes Since 2007, Danish thriller writer Jussi Adler-Olsen has written seven bestselling novels in his ongoing series about Department Q at police headquarters in Copenhagen. All the principal characters in their own ways are misfits. Detective Carl Mørck has...
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The Scarred Woman is the seventh novel in Jussi Adler-Olsen’s series about Danish detectives holed up in the basement of Copenhagen’s police headquarters, ostensibly to work on cold cases. Like the six books that preceded it, it tells the story of how the small team in Department Q...
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In 1997, a beautiful 19-year-old schoolgirl is killed by a hit-and-run driver on a road near the school she’s attending. Somehow, her body is throw up fourteen feet into a tree, where it remains hanging until a local police officer discovers her days later. The officer plunges into an...
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In a region of Cameroon populated by people outsiders call pygmies, a Danish development project has gone off the rails. Then, shortly after a visitor from the Danish foreign ministry is glimpsed on a visit, the local liaison between the project and the Danes is brutally murdered. Back home in...
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Many Americans harbor an image of Denmark as one of the most progressive and livable countries in the world. That may well be the case—the country’s rankings on global indexes support it—but you might well gain a different impression of Denmark if you read the crime thrillers written by...
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The bestselling Danish thriller writer Jussi Adler-Olsen ranks among Scandinavia’s top literary exports. A Conspiracy of Faith, the third entry in his Department Q series of detective novels, matches the first two books in suspense, intensity, and complexity with a tangled tale of religious...
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Carl Morck is a troublemaker. As a detective on the homicide squad in the Copenhagen police, his rude behavior caused so much distress among his coworkers that they went out of their way to avoid him. Then he and his two partners were ambushed by an unknown assailant. One of the partners ended up...
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Estimated reading time: 4 minutes You know about Scandinavian noir from Sweden (Henning Mankell and Stieg Larsson) and Norway (Jo Nesbö). How about Denmark? If your memory’s long, perhaps you’re familiar with Smilla’s Sense of Snow by Peter Hoeg, which came out of Denmark (and...
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Mysteries & Thrillers Tuesday includes my latest mystery and thriller book review,
with links to other science fiction content.
Nonfiction Wednesday includes my latest nonfiction book review,
with links to other nonfiction content.
The Weekly includes summaries and links to all the previous week’s three to five book reviews, including some that don’t appear in any of the other newsletters.
Mysteries & Thrillers Tuesday includes my latest mystery and thriller book review, with links to other science fiction content.
Nonfiction Wednesday includes my latest nonfiction book review, with links to other nonfiction content.
The Weekly includes summaries and links to all the previous week’s three to five book reviews, including some that don’t appear in any of the other newsletters.