Happy Sunday, readers, and welcome back to our weekly spotlight on Scandinavian crime fiction! If you’re new to CBTB, every Sunday this November, I’ll be spotlighting crime fiction from a particular Nordic country. We’ve already explored Norwegian crime fiction and Swedish crime fiction, and this weekend, it’s Denmark’s turn! Denmark is home to two bestselling crime writers whose work helped introduce me to the Scandinavian crime fiction genre, writers who remain some of my favorites to this day,, and it’s also home to a number of up-and-coming crime writers whose novels are shaking up the genre, and delivering truly gripping and inventive stories. Today I’ll be walking you through my personal favorite Danish crime writers, and giving you tips for where to start with their work! I’ll add the same disclaimer here that I’ve had on my last couple Nordic Noir blog posts: this list is by no means an exhaustive rundown of all the Danish crime writers out there, simply a guide to my personal favorites, which I hope will help you embark on your own journey discovering their work!
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Book Review: THE KINGDOM by Jo Nesbø
Where to begin with this book review? If you’ve been around Crime by the Book for more than a couple days, you’ve probably already picked up on the fact that Norwegian crime writer Jo Nesbø is my all-time, hands-down favorite author. I could go on and on about my long standing love of Nesbø’s books. I could tell you about the moment I was recommended his books while on my first trip to Norway years ago; I could share how his books got me through heartbreak, a cross-country move, job changes, health challenges, and a whole lot more; I could tell you about the time I spent a day in Oslo, Norway retracing the most significant locations from his bestselling crime fiction series. But (contrary to how it seems so far!) this blog post isn’t actually about me. It’s about Nesbø’s outstanding new standalone novel THE KINGDOM—a book that captivated me and swept me up in its gritty, tragic tale of love and betrayal. In THE KINGDOM, Nesbø departs from his beloved Harry Hole series with a standalone novel that trades serial killers and police procedure for long-buried interpersonal secrets and the fallout of their resurrection. THE KINGDOM is a masterful work of rural noir, a story that will pluck you up from wherever you are sitting and bring you to a small (fictional) town nestled in the mountains of western Norway. Slow-burning yet propulsive, THE KINGDOM showcases a new side of Nesbø’s crime writing talent. With THE KINGDOM, he has delivered another outstanding work of crime fiction, a story that explores themes of family, love, and loyalty, all wrapped up in a gritty, slow-burning, rural noir package.
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Nordic Noir November: Spotlight on Swedish Crime Fiction
Happy Sunday, readers, and welcome back to our weekly spotlight on Scandinavian crime fiction! If you’re new to CBTB, every Sunday this November, I’ll be spotlighting crime fiction from a particular Nordic country. Last Sunday, I shared a rundown of my personal favorite Norwegian crime writers, and this week, it’s Sweden’s turn! From iconic bestselling series to under-the-radar books, from serial killer thrillers to psychological thrillers and a whole lot more, there is so much fantastic crime fiction coming out of Sweden. Today I’ll be walking you through a rundown of my personal favorite Swedish crime writers, and giving you tips on where to start with their work. I’ll add the same disclaimer here that I did on last week’s blog post: this is by no means an exhaustive list of all the incredible Swedish crime writers out there (this list could go on and on if I didn’t cut it off somewhere!). Instead, this list is intended to give you a guide to my personal favorite (and most-recommended) Swedish crime writers!
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Nordic Noir November: Spotlight on Norwegian Crime Fiction
Happy Sunday, readers, and welcome to our first #NordicNoirNovember feature! If you’ve been around Crime by the Book for a while, you’ll know that I’m always looking for a reason to talk about my favorite crime fiction subgenre: Nordic Noir, aka Scandinavian Crime Fiction. This year, we’re celebrating Nordic Noir November here on CBTB! Every Sunday this November, I’ll be spotlighting a different Nordic country and my personal favorite crime writers from that country here on my blog, and on my Instagram account. To kick off our Nordic Noir November celebration, we’re starting with my personal favorite Nordic country to visit: Norway. From my favorite city, Oslo, to the country’s beautiful fjords and mountains, to smaller (and no less beautiful!) cities and towns in between, Norway is a country filled with stunning locations to visit, and since most of us have to stay home for the time being, now is the perfect time to “armchair travel” to this incredible part of the world. The authors highlighted in today’s blog post will take you from the streets of Oslo to the stunning and remote landscape of northern Norway and beyond, in some of my personal favorite crime books I’ve ever read.
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Book Review: THE NESTING by C.J. Cooke
Gothic suspense gets a Nordic makeover in C.J. Cooke’s beguiling and bone-chilling 2020 release THE NESTING. In this inventive suspense novel, there’s more than just wildlife lurking in the woods of Norway, and an unsuspecting young woman is about to realize that her new home isn’t just slightly creepy… it’s flat-out dangerous. When I first learned of C.J. Cooke’s book THE NESTING, I could hardly believe my good luck. It felt like one of those rare moments when an author somehow managed to craft the exact right combination of things you personally love as a reader—for me, in this case, a combination of Gothic suspense and a Norwegian setting—and I could hardly wait to dive in. I’m happy to report that Cooke’s latest release more than met my (high!) expectations. THE NESTING puts a modern spin on a classic Gothic suspense premise, and wraps it all up in the atmosphere of Scandinavia. Fans of Netflix’s The Haunting of Bly Manor and Ruth Ware’s THE TURN OF THE KEY (both of which pay homage to Henry James’ classic THE TURN OF THE SCREW, I would be remiss not to add!) will adore the immersive Gothic tale Cooke spins in her latest novel, while readers who love stories set in Scandinavia will sink effortlessly into the dark forests of Norway in which THE NESTING is set. As we enter the colder, darker months of the year, C.J. Cooke’s THE NESTING is the perfect spine-tingling story to add to your TBR list.
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