Features

As more readers are discovering, crime fiction from Scandinavia offers something that is often more rich and intriguing than British or American fare. But why has the field of crime in translation – for so long a backwater – become such a hot ticket? There are several reasons. The astonishing success of Peter Høeg’s Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow was a wake-up call: here was crime with all the textural richness of literary fiction, opening up to us a fascinating new region, Denmark.

But Smilla was the tip of the iceberg: Henning Mankell’s Stockholm was also the haunt of Liza Marklund, with her tenacious investigative journalist heroine. And we had Mari Jungstedt, taking us to the windswept island of Gotland, where violence lurks. Then we could visit Åke Edwardson’s menacing Gothenburg, or the Reykjavík of Arnaldur Indriðason, and Karin Fossum’s Norway. By now Scandinavian crime aficionados were spoiled for choice. Who next for a shot of Nordic criminality? Pernille Rygg? AC Baantjer? But better an embarrassment of riches than a drought.

No danger of the latter, though, as new names appear daily – such as the woman people are already calling The Next Big Thing: Camilla Läckberg. Aren’t readers lucky, with crime horizons stretching from Oxford to Oslo?

Read Barry Forshaw's profiles of the big names in Scandinavian crime writing: Henning Mankell, Jo Nesbø, Stieg Larsson, Håkan Nesser, and Yrsa Sigurdardottir