The Best Scandinavian Crime Novel of the Year
2017 Petrona Award for the Best Scandinavian Crime Novel of the Year
Having just been announced at the end of March, here is the list and booktrails of all six books and a guess as to which one might take the crown…
Which book do you think will take the prize?
THE EXILED by Kati Hiekkapelto Word Wizard: David Hackston
Location: Serbia, Kanizsa
Murder. Corruption. Dark secrets. A titanic wave of refugees. Can Anna solve a terrifying case that’s become personal? Anna Fekete returns to the Balkan village of her birth for a relaxing summer holiday. But when her purse is stolen and the thief is found dead on the banks of the river, Anna is pulled into a murder case. The Roma Gypsies, the idea of ‘the outsider’, the language barrier and the crossroads where Serbia sits in the world – all woven into the main crime plot.
THE DYING DETECTIVE by Leif G.W. Persson Word Wizard: Neil Smith
Location: Stockholm, Stockholm archipelago
A detective, seriously ill in a Stockholm hospital, hears about a cold case which has remained unsolved and which still haunts everyone connected to it. He could kill himself by getting involved in the case but even this doesn’t stop him. Despite the serious issues in the book,there are some very nice mentions and inclusions of the real Stockholm that only locals know – the most famous hotdog stand, the local parks and the idea that these streets are as much a character as the characters themselves.
THE BIRD TRIBUNAL by Agnes Ravatn Word Wizard: Rosie Hedger
Location: Norway
Would you take voluntary exile in a remote farmhouse, living with an old man in an isolated fjord? This is a haunting melody of a novel. Strangely compelling, yet deeply unusual in style and substance. Ice ice fiction at its chilling, remote and claustrophobic best.
WHY DID YOU LIE? by Yrsa Sigurđardóttir Word Wizard: Victoria Cribb
Location: Iceland, Westman Islands
What happens when the only thing you have in common is a lie? A policewoman’s husband has committed suicide, a group of people are stranded by hostile weather on a remote lighthouse, and a family have their American guests go missing. It’s not the kind of place here you’d want to be on your own! Maybe don’t read the book on your own either…
WHERE ROSES NEVER DIE by Gunnar Staalesen Word Wizard: Don Bartlett
Location: Bergen, Alesund, Nørvøya, Vigra
A young girl is snatched whilst playing in the sand pit outside her home. She lived there with her family, a safe place or so they thought. It’s a close-knit community where everyone knows everyone else. Where you THINK you know everyone else. The locations in this novel make up the landscape of fear and regret. A lack of resolution and ‘knowing’ has left so many people, especially the mother unable to truly function. A closed knit community with only a few houses, where children wandered in and out of each other’s houses.
THE WEDNESDAY CLUB by Kjell Westö Word Wizard: Neil Smith
Location: Helsinki
Hitler’s expansionist policies are arousing both anger and admiration, not least in Helsinki’s Wednesday Club. In 1938 when the book is set, Finland was a country with a unique set of problems. It was independent but was severely affected and influenced by its overpowering Russian neighbour, not to mention the rise of Nazism. This is a book which examines what happens when two people meet by chance and a crime results from that – against the surrounding history of a country at war..
So who is going to be the overall winner? I think it should be Gunnar Staalesen or Agnes Ravatn or maybe Yrsa Sigurđardóttir…but then I did like Kati’s book and as for the Wednesday Club and the Dying Detective….I really can’t call it – but the best of luck to the judges who have one very tricky task ahead!
And why the Petrona Award is so important: from the Petrona website:
“The Petrona Award has been established to celebrate the work of Maxine Clarke, one of the first online crime fiction reviewers and bloggers, who died in December 2012. Maxine, whose online persona and blog was called Petrona, was passionate about translated crime fiction but in particular that from the Scandinavian countries.”
