Newcastle Noir goes Nordic…
Very excited to announce that TheBooktrail is the official blogger of Newcastle Noir this year so that will mean lots of insider info, trails and other news from the authors who will be sharing their love of crime fiction and showing us around the settings of their novels. (Yippee!! can’t wait)
Today, on #Translation Thursday and to kick start Newcastle Noir Season…..a look at the writers on the Nordic Noir panel. TheBooktrail at Newcastle Noir
Location: Sweden – Falkenberg, Gothenburg…London and Buchenwald
Block 46 Johana Gustawsson
Maxim Jakubowski (Translator)
Be VERY excited about this author and Block 46 – A huge hit in her native France and quite rightly so. Now translated by Orenda books, this is out in May but is available now on Kindle so GRAB IT NOW as it will move you to tears, break your heart and stab your emotions to shreds – that’s why that knife on the cover is there I imagine – when you see the book in real life as it were, the cover almost looks 3D which adds another, even more terrifying dimension to proceedings.
A clever thriller this one – how could a murders in Sweden and London be connected? How is the horrific Buchenwald camp linked to all of this? Well, the chapters on what happens in the camps is horrifically realistic but when you see how everything weaves together, it’s worth it. A very very gripping read this one and brilliantly, flawlessly translated by Maxim Jakubowski
Location: Stockholm
The Ice Beneath Her Author/Guide: Camilla Grebe
Elizabeth Clark Wessel (Translator)
Camilla has written four crime novels with her sister Asa Traff which feature psychologist Siri Bergman and The Moscow Noir trilogy with Paul Leander -Engstrom.
Her first solo novel is The Ice Beneath Her which is set in Stockholm and which opens with a very shocking scene when an unidentified young woman is found beheaded in an infamous business tycoon’s marble-lined hallway.
It’s the snow, the Jo Nesbo connotations and the range of characters and their issues which makes this a stand out thriller. The premise is rather unique too – a profiler with dementia and a unidentified victim, a detective with problems of their own, and a missing man who no one seems to like.
Location: Stockholm, Sweden, Denmark
The Crow Girl by Erik Axl Sund
Neil Smith (Translator)
Erik Axel Sund is really two people – Jerker Eriksson and Hakan Axlander Sundquist. This is the book which put them on the literary map so to speak and it’s a killer read. A mummified body is found bound with tape and then discarded in a bag of rubbish. Detective Superintendent Jeannette Kihlberg takes charge of the case and is assisted by colleague Jens Hurtig. Dare you enter the world of the Crow Girl? Jeepers, it’s not for the faint hearted!
The writing duo are currently working on the second in the Melancholia series (Glass Bodies was the first)
So let’s celebrate the authors for such fantastic books – but on this Translation Thursday – let’s give a shout out to the Word Wizards Maxim Jakubowski – Elizabeth Clark Wessel and Neil Smith for bringing this books to the English speaking world
