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.

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 Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest

By Stieg Larsson, translated by Reg Keeland

Place: Publisher & Year: New York: Knopf, c2007, 2010

Genre: Suspense, thriller, mystery

Series: Millennium trilogy; 3

ISBN: 9780307269997

Intended audience: Adult

Number of pages: 563 (plus 2 pages of notes)

Setting: Stockholm and Göteborg, Sweden

Time period: Contemporary – around 2005

Plot summary: Even as Lisbeth Salander lies in critical condition after taking a bullet to the head, the secret organization that made her life hell as a child, still plots against her.  Her immediate concern, however, is her father – Zalachenko – two doors down in the same hospital.  She also has police problems.  Fortunately, Salander has help.  Mikael Blomkvist and his sister Annika Giannini both help Salander in their own ways.  There is also a whole team of people eager to help her online in ways in which Blomkvist and his friends have little skill.  Contacting them will be tricky without either a computer or internet, though.  Salander can receive no visitors in the hospital and will be transferred to prison to await her trial once she has recovered.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

By Stieg Larsson; translated by Reg Keelan

Place: Publisher & Year: New York: Vintage Books, c2008, 2009

Genre: Thriller, mystery, suspense

Series: Millennium trilogy; 1

ISBN: 9780307473479

Intended audience: Adult

Number of pages: 644

Setting: Stockholm, Hedestad & Hedeby Island, Sweden

Time period: around 2003-2004

Plot summary: When Mikael Blomkvist, a financial journalist, is recently convicted of libel, he needs a break from his position as publisher of the magazine Millennium.  Therefore, when Henrik Vanger, of the Vanger Corporation, asks him to investigate the mysterious death of his niece nearly forty years ago, Blomkvist accepts, even though he doesn’t think he’ll be able to discover any new evidence.  However, with the help of a heavily pierced and tattooed research assistant, Lisbeth Salander, he discovers a shocking truth which puts his own life into jeopardy.

The Girl who Played with Fire

By Stieg Larsson (Translated from Swedish by Reg Keeland)

Place: Publisher & Year: New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2009

Genres: Thriller, mystery, suspense

Series: Millennium trilogy; 2

ISBN: 9780307269980

Intended audience: adult

Number of pages: 503

Settings: Stockholm, Sweden and Grenada

Time period: around 2004 – 2005

Plot summary: Lisbeth Salander is an extremely introverted genius hacker who has few friends and has been dealt much more than her share of injustice throughout her life.  This has helped mold her moral codes.  After helping the journalist, Mikael Blomkvist, to expose “the Wennerström affair” Salander needed a break from her realities of life (see The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) and travelled around the world before returning to Stockholm to re-establish her life.  Unfortunately upon her return to Stockholm, her life catches up with her and she soon finds herself the focus of a police investigation for triple murder.