Scandinavian Mysteries

young woman is murdered in her Oslo flat. One finger has been severed from her left hand, and behind her eyelid is secreted a tiny red diamond in the shape of a five-pointed star – a pentagram, the devil’s star. Detective Harry Hole is assigned to the case with his long-time adversary Tom Waaler and initially wants no part in it. But Harry is already on notice to quit the force and is left with little alternative but to drag himself out of his alcoholic stupor and get to work. A wave of similar murders is on the horizon. An emerging pattern suggests that Oslo has a serial killer on its hands....

The Bucket List starts when undercover FBI Agent John Adderley wakes up in a hospital bed in Baltimore with extensive gunshot wounds. He knows he’s lucky to be alive. And just a few beds away is the man who 24 hours ago pointed a gun to his head. Soon, a high-profile cold-case file is sent to Agent Adderley, now living in Sweden (where he’s not lived since he was a boy) in witness protection, hiding until he can testify against the drug cartel he infiltrated back in the States. Adderley is determined to solve the case, even with a price on his head....

July 2007. A letter arrives on Inspector Barbarotti’s doorstep detailing a murder that is about to take place in his quiet Swedish town. By the time the police track down the subject of the letter, he is already dead. So when a second letter arrives, then a third, and a fourth, it’s a game of cat and mouse to stop the killer before he can make good on all of his promises.

Sonny's on the run. Sonny is a model prisoner. He listens to the confessions of other inmates, and absolves them of their sins. He's been lied to his whole life. But then one prisoner’s confession changes everything. He knows something about Sonny’s disgraced father. Sonny wants revenge. He needs to break out of prison and make those responsible pay for their crimes. Whatever the cost.

Harry is on a special mission. Detective Harry Hole arrives in a steaming hot Bangkok. The Norwegian ambassador has been found dead in a seedy motel room, and Harry has been sent to investigate. It’s clear that the Ambassador’s family are hiding some secrets of their own, but few people are willing to talk.He needs to solve a crime and avoid a scandal. When Harry lays hands on some incriminating CCTV footage, things only get more complicated.

On the day Stockholm police officer Hanna Ahlander’s personal and professional lives crash, she takes refuge at her sister’s lodge in the Swedish ski resort paradise of Åre. But it’s a brief comfort. The entire village is shaken by the sudden vanishing of a local teenage girl. Hanna can’t help but investigate, and while searching for the missing person, she lands a job with the local police department. There she joins forces with Detective Inspector Daniel Lindskog, who has been tasked with finding the girl. Their only lead: a scarf in the snow.

A woman is found murdered after an Internet date. The marks left on her body show the police that they are dealing with a particularly vicious killer. Under pressure from the media to find the murderer, the force know there's only one man for the job. But Harry Hole is reluctant to return to the place that almost took everything from him. Until he starts to suspect a connection between this killing and his one failed case.

Iceland, 1956. Fifteen-year-old Lára spends the summer working for a couple on the small island of Videy, just off the coast of Reykjavík. In early August, the girl disappears without a trace. The mystery becomes Iceland's greatest unsolved case. What happened to the young girl? Is she still alive? Did she leave the island, or did something happen to her there? Thirty years later in August, 1986, as the city of Reykjavík celebrates its 200th anniversary, journalist Valur Robertsson begins his own investigation into Lara's case.

A young boy wakes to find his mother missing. Their house is empty but outside in the garden he sees his mother's favourite scarf – wrapped around the neck of a snowman. As Harry Hole and his team begin their investigation they discover that an alarming number of wives and mothers have gone missing over the years. When a second woman disappears it seems that Harry's worst suspicions are confirmed: for the first time in his career Harry finds himself confronted with a serial killer operating on his home turf.

The downloadable, digital audiobook edition of Jussi Adler-Olsen’s sensational new thriller, read by the actor Steven Pacey. Two boys, brothers, wake tied and bound in a boathouse by the sea. Their kidnapper has gone, but soon he will return. Their bonds are inescapable. But there is a bottle and tar to seal it. Paper and a splinter for writing; blood for ink. A message begging for help. In Copenhagen’s cold cases division Carl Morck has received a bottle. It holds an old and decayed message, written in blood.

In the Swedish ski resort of Åre, crime is rare. Certainly nothing so brutal as the murder of Johan Andersson, a former Olympic skier found bound and beaten to death in the forest. According to his distraught wife, he didn’t have any enemies in the world. To Detective Inspectors Hanna Ahlander and Daniel Lindskog, the crime proves otherwise. But what could have provoked such rage? And in whom?

Harry Hole, drunkard, loner and brilliant detective is reassigned to surveillance after a high profile mistake. He’s bored by his new job until a report of a rare and unusual gun being fired sparks his interest because of its possible links to Neo Nazi activity. Then a former soldier is found with his throat cut. Next Harry’s former partner is murdered. Why had she been trying to reach Harry on the night her head was smashed in?

Una knows she is struggling to deal with her father's sudden, tragic suicide. She spends her nights drinking alone in Reykjavik, stricken with thoughts that she might one day follow in his footsteps. So when she sees an advert seeking a teacher for two girls in the tiny village of Skálar - population of 10 - on the storm-battered north coast of the island, she sees it as a chance to escape. But once she arrives, Una quickly realises nothing in city life has prepared her for this. The villagers are unfriendly. The weather is bleak.

A man is found murdered in his Reykjavik flat. There are no obvious clues apart from a cryptic note left on the body and a photograph of a young girl's grave. Delving into the dead man's life Detective Erlendur discovers that 40 years ago he was accused of an appalling crime, but never convicted. Had his past come back to haunt him? As Erlendur struggles to build a relationship with his unhappy daughter, his investigation takes him to Iceland's Genetic Research Centre, where he uncovers disturbing secrets that are even darker than the murder of an old man.

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of The Darkness by Ragnar Jonasson. A young woman, an asylum seeker from Russia, is found murdered on the seaweed-covered rocks of the Vatnsleysuströnd in Iceland. Detective Inspector Hulda Hermannsdottir of the Reykjavik Police is called to investigate this - the final case in her career before she is forced into retirement. When Hulda starts to ask questions, it isn't long before she realises that no-one can be trusted and that no-one is telling the whole truth.

Four nuns and a fifth woman, a visitor to Africa, are killed in a savage nighttime attack. Months later in Sweden, the news of the unexplained tragedy sets off a cruel vengeance for these killings. Inspector Kurt Wallander is home from an idyllic holiday in Rome, full of energy and plans for the future. Autumn settles in, and Wallander prays the winter will be peaceful. But when he investigates the disappearance of an elderly birdwatcher, he discovers a gruesome and meticulously planned murder - a body impaled in a trap of sharpened bamboo poles.

Random House presents the audiobook edition of The White Lioness by Henning Mankell, read by Sean Barrett. In 1992, in peaceful Southern Sweden, Louise Akerblom, an estate agent, pillar of the Methodist church, wife and mother, disappears. There is no explanation and no motive. Inspector Wallander and his team are called in to investigate. As Wallander is introduced to this case, he has a gut feeling that the victim will never be found alive, but he has no idea how far he will have to go in search of the killer.

The leader of a religious cult in Guyana instigates a mass suicide. He succeeds in killing himself and his whole flock of worshippers, save one. One man escapes. In the wood in the country land outside Ystad, the police make an horrific discovery: a severed head, and hands locked together in an attitude of prayer. A Bible lies at the victim's side, handwritten corrections and amendments on every page.

Jurek Walter was shot and killed years ago. The police moved on and managed to forget the darkness that had tainted their lives. But now someone is leaving a trail of broken bodies across Sweden, and the clues all point to Walter. Detective Joona Linna is convinced his worst nightmare is becoming a reality: the man who tore apart his family has returned to finish the job. When Joona’s partner is taken - and locked inside an underground coffin - he finds himself with an impossible choice: leave her to die, or walk into the trap set by the only man he ever feared.

It is Midsummer's Eve. Three young friends meet in a wood to act out an elaborate masque. But, unknown to them, they are being watched. Each is killed by a single bullet. Soon afterwards, one of Inspector Wallander's colleagues is found murdered. Is this the same killer, and what could the connection be? In this investigation, Wallander is always, tantalisingly, one step behind.