8 Essential Books for Scandinavian Noir Fans

Scandinavian authors are among the best in the world at writing suspenseful thrillers. Have we got a list for you if you enjoy atmospheric, page-turning mysteries written by Swedish, Danish, and Nordic authors! Here are 8 engrossing Scandinavian Nordic noir books you won’t be able to put down, from authors like Jo Nesbø to Stiegg Larsson.

Outside

Ragnar Jónasson

Four friends. One night. Not everyone will come out alive . . .

When a deadly snowstorm strikes the Icelandic highlands, four friends seek shelter in a small, abandoned hunting lodge. It is in the middle of nowhere and there’s no way of communicating with the outside world.

They are isolated, but they are not alone . . .

As the night darkens, and fears intensify, an old tragedy gradually surfaces – one that forever changed the course of their friendship.

Release Date: June 28, 2022

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The Harbor

Katrine Engberg

When fifteen-year-old Oscar Dreyer-Hoff disappears in this “masterpiece of Nordic noir” (Booklist, starred review), the police assume he’s simply a runaway—a typically overlooked middle child doing what teenagers do all around the world. But his frantic family is certain that something terrible has happened.

It’s not much to go on, but it’s all that detectives Jeppe Kørner and Anette Werner have. And with every passing hour, as the odds of finding a missing person grow dimmer, it will have to be enough.

Release Date: February 22, 2022

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The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Stieg Larsson

Forty years ago, Harriet Vanger disappeared from a family gathering on the island owned and inhabited by the powerful Vanger clan. Her body was never found, yet her uncle is convinced it was murder – and that the killer is a member of his own tightly knit but dysfunctional family.

He employs disgraced financial journalist Mikael Blomkvist and the tattooed, truculent computer hacker Lisbeth Salander to investigate. When the pair link Harriet’s disappearance to a number of grotesque murders from forty years ago, they begin to unravel a dark and appalling family history.

Release Date: June 4, 2015

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The Mirror Man

Lars Kepler

Sixteen-year-old Jenny Lind is kidnapped in broad daylight on her way home from school and thrown into the back of a truck. She’s taken to a dilapidated house, where she and other girls face horrors far beyond their worst nightmares. Though they’re desperate to escape, their captor foils everyone of their attempts. Five years later, Jenny’s body is found hanging in a playground, strung up with a winch on a rainy night. As the police are scrambling to find a lead in the scant evidence, Detective Joona Linna recognizes an eerie connection between Jenny’s murder and a death declared a suicide years before.

Release Date: January 18, 2022

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Smilla’s Sense of Snow

Peter Høeg

First published in 1992, Peter Høeg’s Smilla’s Sense of Snow instantly became an international sensation. When caustic Smilla Jaspersen discovers that her neighbor–a neglected six-year-old boy, and possibly her only friend–has died in a tragic accident, a peculiar intuition tells her it was murder.

Unpredictable to the last page, Smilla’s Sense of Snow is one of the most beautifully written and original crime stories of our time, a new classic.

Release Date: October 1, 1995

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The Midnight Witness

Sara Blaedel

A young woman is found strangled in a park, and a male journalist has been killed in the backyard of the Royal Hotel in Copenhagen.

Detective Louise Rick is put on the case of the young girl, but very soon becomes entangled in solving the other homicide too when it turns out her best friend, journalist Camilla Lind, knew the murdered man.

Louise tries to keep her friend from getting too involved, but Camilla’s never been one to miss out on an interesting story. And this time, Camilla may have gone too far…

Release Date: October 23, 2018

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The Kingdom

Jo Nesbø

Roy and Carl, brothers from a small mountain town, have spent their whole lives hiding from the darkness in their pasts—Roy by staying put and staying quiet, and Carl by running far away. Roy believed his little brother was gone for good. But Carl has big plans for his hometown.

And when he returns with a mysterious new wife and a business opportunity that seems too good to be true, simmering tensions begin to surface and unexplained deaths in the town’s past come under new scrutiny. Soon powerful players set their sights on taking the brothers down by exposing their role in the town’s sordid history.

Release Date: November 10, 2020

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The Golden Cage

Camilla Läckberg

Faye has loved Jack since they were students at business school. Jack, the perpetual golden boy, grew up wealthy, unlike Faye, who has worked hard to bury a dark past. When Jack needed help launching a new company, Faye left school to support him, waitressing by day and working as his strategist by night. When the business took off, Faye stayed home and cared for their daughter.

Now, she is wealthier than she ever imagined, but more and more removed from the excitement of the business world.

Release Date: July 7, 2020

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Tags: Crime Fiction