International interest in Swedish crime fiction and thrillers continues to be strong
Sail of Stone by Åke Edwardson, translated by Rachel Willson-Broyles.
Simon & Schuster, March 2012. Sail of Stone is the sixth book in the Erik Winter series. It is the story of two family mysteries. Chief Inspector Erik Winter must follow his case from Gothenburg to Scotland to find a man who’s gone missing while searching for his missing father; while in Scotland he is aided by an old friend and colleague. Back in Gothenburg, Aneta Djanali is on the case of another missing person—the police suspect a woman is being abused, but no one seems to know where the woman is. As Winter and Djanali hunt for the missing, they discover that nothing is quite as it seems in either family.
Strindberg’s Star by Jan Wallentin, translated by Rachel Willson-Broyles.
Viking, May 2012. This international thriller combines the Andrée expedition to the North Pole, memories of horrific experiments on prisoners in Nazi Germany, a mysterious body found by a spelunker, and an epic journey by train and icebreaker into one complex mystery. Expert on religious symbols (and prescription drug addict) Don Titelman goes to investigate an ankh—an ancient Egyptian symbol of life—found by a cave diver and is accidentally swept up in a series of events that takes him from Sweden to Belgium, Germany, and Russia as he tries to find the ankh’s missing counterpart while evading the strange group that is pursuing him. Along the way he meets a lawyer who is also keenly interested in the ankh. The story builds to a final, dramatic confrontation deep in the Arctic, where Titelman must finally face all of his fears and weaknesses.
Some Kind of Peace by Camilla Grebe & Åsa Träff, translated by Paul Norlen.
Free Press, July 2012. The first crime novel co-authored by Swedish sisters Camilla Grebe and Åsa Träff has an unusual protagonist: clinical psychologist Siri Bergman. Living in an isolated cottage in the Stockholm archipelago, Bergman begins to suspect that someone is pursuing her. When one of her patients is found dead in the water near her cottage, events begin to escalate, and everyone around her, including her patients, could potentially be the killer. The book received a starred review in Publishers Weekly.