Nemesis

By Jo Nesbø; translated by Don Bartlett

Place: Publisher & Year: New York: Harper, c2002, 2012

Genres: Mystery, suspense, thriller, crime thriller, police procedural, Scandinavian noir

Series: Harry Hole; 5

ISBN: 9780062119698

Audience: Adult

Number of pages: 480 (501 including an excerpt from The Devil’s Star)

Setting: Oslo, Norway, D’Ajuda & Porto Seguro, Brazil

Time period: shortly after 9/11 2001

Plot summary: While a bank robber terrorizes Oslo by killing people when he doesn’t get his money fast enough, Detective Harry Hole has more intimate concerns.  He has been seeing an ex-girlfriend while his current lover is out of the country.  The morning after their last date, she is found dead from a gunshot wound to the head and Harry is unable to remember most of the night’s events.

Mastiff

By Tamora Pierce

Place: Publisher & Year: New York: Random House, 2011

Genres: Fantasy, mystery, paranormal

Series: Beka Cooper; 3

ISBN: 9780375814709

Audience: Young adult

Number of pages: 593

Setting: Kingdom of Tortall

Time period: 249 H.E. (medieval)

Plot summary: Beka Cooper and her partner, Mattias Tunstall, are summoned to a hunt by their Lord Gershom in the middle of the night.  Beka and her scent hound, Achoo, along with Tunstall, Lord Gershom, Pounce, and a mage named Farmer Cape, travel to the Summer Palace where they discover a royal kidnapping has occurred and the kidnappers had inside help.  It’s up to Beka and her colleagues to track down Prince Gareth, who has been sold into slavery, and return him safely to the king and queen.

The Leopard

By Jo Nesbø; translated by Don Bartlett

Place: Publisher & Year: New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2011

Genres: Mystery, suspense,  thriller, crime thriller, police procedural, Scandinavian noir

Series: Harry Hole; 8

ISBN: 9780307595874

Audience: Adult

Number of pages: 513*

Setting: Hong Kong, China, Oslo,  Norway, Kigali, Rwanda & Goma, The Congo

Time period: Contemporary

Plot summary: After working on The Snowman case, Harry’s life takes a turn for the worse and he finds himself indebted to a gangster in Hong Kong.  Meanwhile, another serial killer is on the loose in Oslo and Crime Squad wants Harry on the case.  Unfortunately for the police, Harry doesn’t want to have anything to do with serial killers or the people trying to track them.  The only thing compelling Harry to return to Oslo is family.

The Redbreast

By Jo Nesbø; translated by Don Bartlett

Place: Publisher & Year: New York: Harper, c2000, 2011

Genres: Mystery, suspense, thriller, crime thriller, police procedural, Scandinavian noir, historical fiction

Series: Harry Hole; 3

ISBN: 9780062068422

Audience: Adult

Number of pages: 553 (563 including an excerpt from The Devil’s Star)

Setting: Oslo, Norway, Leningrad, Russia, and Vienna, Austria, & Johannesburg, South Africa

Time period: There are two timelines – one takes place from 1999 – 2000; the other takes place during WWII – from 1942 – 1944.

Plot summary: In the course of duty, Police Officer Harry Hole is required to make a very difficult decision in a few seconds.  As a result, a team member is critically wounded and Harry feels responsible.  Therefore, the last thing he expects is a promotion.  As a new inspector, his job is routine and boring – until one report crosses his desk.  As he follows through with the report, he finds evidence of neo-Nazi involvement in an assignation attempt.

The Keeper of Lost Causes

By Jussi Adler-Olsen; translated by Lisa Hartford

Place: Publisher & Year: New York: Dutton, 2011

Genres: Mystery, police procedural, Scandinavian noir, suspense, thriller, crime thriller

Series: Department Q; 1

ISBN: 9780525952480

Audience: Adult

Number of pages: 396

Setting: Copenhagen, Denmark

Time period: Contemporary

Plot summary: Carl Mørck used to be one of Copenhagen’s best homicide detectives, until two of his team members were shot while he was with them.  Carl never even drew his weapon and now he is ridden with guilt and even more surly than he used to be.  A promotion was the last thing he expected, but it was the easiest way for the department heads to get him out of everyone’s presence.  Hidden in the basement, Carl figures he’ll spend the rest of his career sleeping and surfing the internet, until one of the cold cases he’s now in charge of actually peaks his interest.

The Snowman

By Jo Nesbø; translated by Don Bartlett

Place: Publisher & Year: New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2011

Genres: Mystery, suspense, thriller, crime thriller, police procedural, Scandinavian noir

Series: Harry Hole; 7

ISBN: 9780307595867

Audience: Adult

Number of pages: 384

Setting: Oslo, Norway

Time period: Most of the story takes place in November 2004, but some scenes are from 1980 and 1992.

Plot summary: When a mother disappears in the middle of the night from her home, a snowman is found in the yard outside wearing the mothers favorite scarf.  When a second mother disappears, Detective Harry Hole makes a gruesome discovery.  He soon find himself tracking a serial killer, but at the same time, senses that someone is tracking him.

The Indian Bride

By Karin Fossum; translated by Charlotte Barslund

Place: Publisher & Year: Orlando: Harcourt, Inc., c2001, 2005, 2007

Genres: Mystery, police procedural, Scandinavian noir

Series: Inspector Sejer Mystery; 4

ISBN: 9780151011827

Intended audience: Adult

Number of pages: 297

Setting: Elvestad, Norway & Mumbai, India

Time period: Contemporary

Plot summary: Gunder Jomann, an agricultural supply salesman, has lived in the small town of Elvestad his whole life.  When his sister gives him a book about peoples of the world, he finds himself fascinated with the picture of an Indian woman.  Eventually, he decides to take a trip to India with the hopes of finding a wife.   He is successful and finds a woman with whom he falls in love.  However, on the night she is due to arrive in Norway, Gunder is unable to meet her at the airport.  To his horror, he discovers that she has been murdered in Elvestad, less than a mile from what would have been her new home.

The Last Child

By John Hart

Place: Publisher & Year: New York: Minotaur Books, 2009

Genres: Mystery, thriller

ISBN: 9780312359324

Intended audience: Adult

Number of pages: 373

Setting: Rural North Carolina

Time period: Contemporary

Plot summary: Thirteen year old Johnny Merrimon has been looking for his twin sister, Alyssa, since she was abducted a year ago.  In this time, Johnny has also lost both his parents – his mother to drugs and alcohol and his father who walked out one day and never returned.  In spite of how his life has changed for the worse in the past year, Johnny knows that his sister is still alive somewhere and searches the town for her – house by house and street by street.  The lead detective on the case, Clyde Hunt, is also haunted by Alyssa’s disappearance and keeps working on the case even as his own family falls apart around him.  When a professor ends up dead and second girl goes missing in town, Johnny’s persistence reveals a dark and disturbing truth and unravels the threads of a tightly held secret.

Bloodhound

By Tamora Pierce

Place: Publisher & Year: New York: Random House, 2009

Genres: Fantasy, mystery, paranormal

Series: Beka Cooper trilogy; 2

ISBN: 9780375814693

Intended audience: Young adult

Number of pages: 551 (includes Glossary, Cast of Characters, and Notes about the Provost’s Guard)

Setting: Corus and Port Caynn, Tortall

Time period: 247 H.E. (medieval)

Plot summary: No longer a Puppy, Beka Cooper is now a full fledged Dog (Provost Guard) patrolling the streets of Corus’s Lower City.  Her biggest problem as a first year Dog is her lack of ability to keep a partner for very long.  When her latest partner walks out on her, Cooper is teamed up with her old trainers Goodwin and Tunstall.  Even though she wants her own partner, this arrangement works well for Cooper, especially when one of Cooper’s good friends has a problematic encounter involving counterfeit coins.  With Goodwin and Tunstall as partners, Cooper can do some real Dog work for a change and try to learn where the fake coins are originating.

Terrier

By Tamora Pierce

Place: Publisher & Year: New York: Random House, 2006

Genres: Fantasy, mystery, paranormal

Series: Beka Cooper trilogy; 1

ISBN: 9780375814686

Intended audience: Young adult

Number of pages: 581

Setting: City of Corus, Tortall

Time period: 246 H.E. (medieval)

Plot summary: Sixteen year old Beka Cooper has just begun her training with the Provost Guard, or Dogs.  Having survived her first eight years of life in the Cesspool of the Lower City, she feels right at home patrolling the neighborhood – the worst part of all Corus.  As a Puppy, Beka’s Dogs try to keep her out of danger, even if they’re not happy about having a Puppy hound them, but in the Lower City this isn’t always possible.  Beka’s Dogs soon discover, though that Beka has access to information which they don’t for Beka has a special gift in addition to her tenacity.  Beka can hear voices of the dead as they ride with the pigeons and get caught up in the neighborhood dust spinners.  With Beka’s talents, her Dogs’ combined experiences, and the help of some friends, they might be able to stop the rash of killings and kidnappings which have been plaguing the Lower City of late.