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The 7 best Scandinavian thrillers

Reading time : 5 min

A selection of the best Scandinavian crime novels since Millennium

Since the worldwide success of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium saga, Scandinavian crime novels and thrillers have gained undeniable international acclaim. Inspired by a dynamic and diverse literary tradition, each Nordic bestseller takes the reader on a breathtaking journey of suspense.

The Girl in the Woods by Camilla Läckberg (2017)

Thirty years after being convicted of the murder of a four-year-old girl, two women who have rebuilt their lives are charged again when a child is murdered in similar circumstances. As the case being handled by Inspector Patrik Hedström rekindles tensions in the local community, journalist Erica Falck takes a close look at the original crime…

A native of Fjällbacka, the small seaside resort on Sweden’s west coast that she has made the exclusive setting for her series, the queen of Scandinavian crime fiction uses this tenth investigation by her star duo to focus on the misogynistic legacy of the 17th century Swedish Puritans. A captivating and not-to-be-missed thriller that prefigures the feminist offensive adopted by Camilla Läckberg in her subsequent novels, starting with The Gilded Cage.

Victim Without A Face by Stefan Ahnhem (2016)

In Helsingborg, in the south of Sweden just a stone’s throw from Denmark, an elusive killer is settling scores with the past by horrifically murdering everyone in a ninth-grade class photo, which is left as a signature on each body. To make matters worse, Inspector Risk, back in Helsingborg and in charge of the case, is also in the photograph…

Screenwriter of the Wallander series, Stefan Ahnhem, is one of the new stars of Swedish crime fiction. With its fully developed characters, underlying exploration of violence, tense plot, clinical approach, and moments of brutality, Victim Without A Face, his first novel and the first in the Fabian Risk series, brings together all the qualities that define these dark Scandinavian novels.

The Chestnut Man by Søren Sveistrup (2019)

On the outskirts of Copenhagen, a mother’s body is found with one of her hands missing. Next to the body hangs a small figure made of chestnuts bearing the fingerprints of the daughter of the Minister for Social Affairs, who was kidnapped a year earlier and has never been found. The investigation is entrusted to an unconventional duo of detectives who are determined to see it through.

True to the precepts of the Nordic thriller, Søren Sveistrup, who also created the series The Killing, cleverly sets the mystery of his first novel in a socio-political context that addresses the failure of the Danish state and child abuse. Dark and unsettling, like a Danish autumn sky, The Chestnut Man is a very dark thriller that has truly earned its place as a bestseller.

The Quiet Mother by Arnaldur Indridason (2021)

Still wrestling with the demons of his past, Reykjavik‘s gloomiest retired cop has this time been unwittingly drawn into the murder of an elderly woman whom he had refused to help find the child she had been forced to give up fifty years earlier. Overcome by remorse, Konrad decides to investigate the case while continuing to look into his father’s murder.

As in Silence of the Grave, Arnaldur Indridason opens and closes Konrad’s investigation with a masterly sequence that makes explicit reference to Alfred Hitchcock. Fascinated by the passage of time and its consequences, the history of his country, and the hidden side of Reykjavik, the master of Icelandic crime fiction this time introduces a dose of the supernatural that fits beautifully with the profound melancholy of this brooding series.

After She’s Gone, by Camilla Grebe (2018)

A young local policewoman, Malin, is called in to join forces with a famous profiler and a seasoned detective to investigate the case of a young girl with amnesia who was found in rags and with bloody feet in the Ormberg forest. Meanwhile, a reception centre for migrants is causing a stir in the region…

In her second novel, winner of the 2017 Best Swedish Thriller Award, the other Queen Camilla takes us on a breathtaking journey into the depths of depressed rural Sweden that are largely unknown to us. True to the Scandinavian tradition, she weaves a tale of criminal and social suspense with three narrative voices that instil rising tension. Resolutely optimistic despite the racism and darkness that plague this part of the country, Camilla Grebe lets in a welcome ray of sunshine.

Sarek by Ulf Kvensler (2023)

Venturing onto the demanding slopes of the Sarek National Park for the first time, a group of hikers accustomed to the mountains of northern Sweden find themselves trapped in an unforgiving wilderness by extreme weather. Plagued by a foul atmosphere where suspicion and resentment reign supreme, the quartet heads for an inevitable tragedy.

A rising star in the galaxy of Scandinavian thrillers, Sweden’s Ulf Kvensler makes his debut with a shocking novel in which the breathtakingly beautiful landscapes of Sartek become hell on earth. In this stifling outdoor drama, the outcome of which we think we know from the start, the two survivors’ diverging accounts sow confusion right up to an unsettling finale.

The Bat by Jo Nesbø (2012)

As his superiors thought they could get rid of him by sending him to Australia to investigate the case of a young Norwegian woman thrown off a cliff, Oslo detective Harry Hole finds himself, against all odds, at the heart of a crime spree. Working with an Aboriginal colleague, his hunt for the killer brings him face to face with the ancestral traditions of the Outback.

In Harry Hole’s first investigation, Jo Nesbø sets the tone and establishes an endearing but irritating noir hero, at once sullen, tortured, unpredictable, and plagued by an addiction to alcohol. His initial idea for this series, which has become an essential part of Scandinavian crime fiction, was to confront his country’s society with other world cultures by sending his borderline hero to investigate outside Norway.