While TV and film companies have been falling over themselves to snap up adaptation rights to Nordic novels in 2024, authors have continued to publish new works, be they additions to already popular long-running series or brand-new additions and voices to draw in readers.
2024 seems to have seen some key themes develop in the Nordic literary world, with more than one book looking at the concept of what it means to be a victim and several books bringing wider global tensions and threats to the Scandinavian setting. The year has also seen the continuation of the Nordics being home to strong female voices, with half of this year’s top 10 authors being female.
With a busy year of reading, what has been Nordic Watchlist’s top 10 Nordic books of 2024? Iceland continues to surge, with six of the top 10 authors being Icelandic, Norway comes in second and Sweden rounds of the top 10. With the exception of a few notable authors (Jussi Adler-Olsen’s Department Q finale, Locked In, coming in just outside the top 10), Danish literature doesn’t yet seem to have the same international pull as its Scandinavian neighbours, perhaps 2025 will see Denmark put in an appearance?
10. The Clues In the Fjord | Satu Rämö – translated by Kristian London | Zafre | Iceland
The first instalment of a new series always poses a challenge: How much exposition is needed to introduce the reader to a new literary world? Satu Rämö rises to this challenge magnificently in The Clues In The Fjord. There’s enough descriptive narrative to introduce us to a new Icelandic detective partnership, but by employing the technique of seeing that introduction through the eyes of a newcomer, the team is masterful.
The technique allows enough space for a multi-stranded murder investigation to play out in the remote Westfjords of Iceland while introducing some fascinating characters. And characters don’t come much more fascinating that a Finnish police intern, battling Norwegian authorities, on secondment in Iceland all while knitting Icelandic jumpers! While the jumper may be finished at the end of the book, but case-wise several threads remain unresolved and so future releases show much promise.
9. The Traitor| Jørn Lier Horst – translated by Anne Bruce | Michael Joseph | Norway
From a new series to a much-loved old favourite. A new Detective Wisting novel is always a highly anticipated release, and in The Traitor, Jørn Lier Horst doesn’t disappoint. When an extra body is found in the wreckage of a natural disaster Wisting soon discovers he has a murder on his hands, and a cross-border murder at that. Soon though the Norwegian investigator is forced to examine his professional morals as he’s unwittingly drawn personally into the case.
With the criminals always one step ahead of investigators, it soon becomes apparent that there’s a mole in the investigation. Can Wisting discover who before his own betrayals are discovered?
Lier Horst’s latest gives us a chance to see another side of what has become one of Norway’s most favoured literary characters and it will be fascinating to see where the ripples created in The Traitor reverberate in future installments.
8. Victim | Jørn Lier Horst and Thomas Enger- translated by Megan Turney | Orenda Books| Norway
A second entry into the top 10 for Jørn Lier Horst, this time collaborating with long-term writing partner Thomas Enger for the fifth instalment of their Blix and Ramm series, Victim.
If first-instalment books such as 10th placed The Clues In The Fjord are difficult, then books on their fifth instalment can be even more problematic, vying to keep readers interested in already established characters while at the same time driving a narrative forward. In such assured hands as Lier Horst and Enger though that’s never a worry. In Victim they too take us into the depths of a troubled mind and childhood trauma. It seems to be an unannounced theme in 2024 that many writers have picked up on but here in Victim it’s meticulously plotted as one would expect. In any situation, there’s rarely just one victim as the effects of crime spread wide and in Victim, Lier Horst and Enger excel at showing the multi-layered impact of how events decades earlier can have repercussions today.
7. The Mermaid | Anki Edvinson – translated by Paul Norlan| Thomas and Mercer | Sweden
Victimhood is also a theme picked up by Anki Edvinson in The Mermaid, her second Detectives von Klint and Berg series. It is also one of several books this year looking at preconceptions around race and asylum and the tensions they can bring.
Edvinson skilfully looks at the ease with which rumour can soon take hold and the strains this can place both on indigenous populations and those seeking to create a new life away from persecution. The Mermaid contains all the usual twists and turns to keep Nordic Noir fans happy but also works on a wider level looking at the challenges facing increasingly multicultural communities and the dangers of letting stereotypes colour opinion.
6. The Widows | Pascal Engman – translated by Niel Smith | Legend Press | Sweden
Sharing some themes with The Mermaid, Pascal Engman’s The Widows also sees global events impact Swedish life, as international terrorism reaches the capital. There’s no judgment here though, instead, we’re taken on a fast-paced action thriller across Stockholm as investigators race against the clock to stop an imminent terror plot.
Engman’s skill is evident in the writing, balancing a large number of interwoven plot arcs to keep the reader concentrating. It is an effort that repays the reader though, with the climax worth of the biggest Bond film. In fact, the writing is so cinematic it wouldn’t be surprising to see The Widows on screen soon.
5. Dark As Night | Lilja Sigurðardóttir – translated by Lorenza Garcia | Orenda Books | Iceland
Lilja Sigurðardóttir deserves an award all to herself for the most unlikely series of plot drivers in 2024 – reincarnation, international arms dealers and drag queens – yet in Dark As Night, the fourth of a planned five Áróra investigates series, these disparate plots are weaved into a thrilling whole by Sigurðardóttir.
It certainly pays to read the three previous instalments before tackling Dark As Night as this is less a series of books, rather a continuation of one giant story arc. Sigurðardóttir though proves once again to be a masterful storyteller, taking us on a thrilling international ride, solving some threads from earlier books but leaving enough unresolved questions to make the final book (Deep As Death due in October 2025) a tantalising prospect
In The Kingdom, Jo Nesbø moves away from the world of flawed detective Harry Hole to rural Norway and the complicated world of the Opgard brothers and their attempts to keep one step ahead of the local sheriff as their body count climbs. It seemed a stand-alone but in 2024 we’re offered the sequel Blood Ties.
Any thoughts that murder and revenge may have settled since the earlier books are soon dispelled and the brothers’ dark and complex relationship continues to have serious repercussions. Nesbø’s writing is spot on and achieves the difficult, getting the reader to root for a psychopathic mass murderer. Like all of Nesbø’s works though, things here are not that black and white and Nesbø is not afraid to tackle difficult topics including child, domestic and substance abuse among others. That darkness, though, does provide a painful realism to the piece and a sense of real engagement with the reader.
4. Blood Ties| Jo Nesbø – translated by Robert Fergusson | Vintage | Norway
In The Kingdom, Jo Nesbø moves away from the world of flawed detective Harry Hole to rural Norway and the complicated world of the Opgard brothers and their attempts to keep one step ahead of the local sheriff as their body count climbs. It seemed a stand-alone but in 2024 we’re offered the sequel Blood Ties.
Any thoughts that murder and revenge may have settled since the earlier books are soon dispelled and the brothers’ dark and complex relationship continues to have serious repercussions. Nesbø’s writing is spot on and achieves the difficult, getting the reader to root for a psychopathic mass murderer. Like all of Nesbø’s works though, things here are not that black and white and Nesbø is not afraid to tackle difficult topics including child, domestic and substance abuse among others. That darkness, though, does provide a painful realism to the piece and a sense of real engagement with the reader.
3. Can’t Run, Can’t Hide| Yrsa Sigurdardottir – translated by Victoria Cribb | Hodder & Stoughton | Iceland
Author of our book of the year last year, The Prey, Yrsa Sigurdardottir features high in the chart again this year with an equally chilling work.
When a family are found brutally murdered in their luxurious but remote Icelandic home, we ready know the outcome but Sigurdardottir then ramps up the tension and chills by taking us back in time, alternating chapters of the investigation into the crime with the increasing terrifying series of events that lead to the bloodbath. It’s a clever technique handled beautifully that becomes almost unbearable to read, we know what is coming but are powerless to stop the horrors unfolding.
Like The Prey, the frozen Icelandic winter plays a key role, but even without the icy setting, there’s enough chills here to recommend reading with the light on.
2. Boys Who Hurt | Eva Björg Ægisdóttir – translated by Victoria Cribb | Orenda Books| Iceland
Another entry in this year’s chart that looks at victimhood and childhood trauma, but one that in the hands of Eva Björg Ægisdóttir it becomes an epic tale told in a compelling manner that leaps off the page.
‘Icelandic murders are sordid, amateurish affairs’ states one of the detectives in Boys Who Hurt but there’s nothing amateurish in this storytelling, a mix of domestic and dramatic taking us inside a world of repressed childhood trauma played against the everyday struggles of police balancing home and work pressures. There’s a duality in the title that’s reflected in the plot but Ægisdóttir never judges, letting us decide if the cause justifies the outcomes. The Forbidden Iceland series has now been snapped up for TV adaptation but her next book, Home Before Dark, released in July 2025, is a standalone work that looks equally promising.
1. The Dancer | Oscar Guðmundsson – translated by Quentin Bates| Corylus Books| Iceland
It’s a good sign that a book you read right at the start of the year sticks with you right to the end and that’s the case with Oscar Guðmundsson’s The Dancer. Brutal and unflinching, Oscar Guðmundsson, and Quentin Bates’ thrilling translation, takes us to the darkest recess of the human psyche and doesn’t let us go. This perfect psychological thriller takes us inside the disturbed mind of Tony, a dance student with a dark secret and a troubled relationship with his mother is only one of his issues.
Part Norman Bates in Psycho, part Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard, Tony’s troubled soul will linger long in your mind. Driven to the edge of sanity there’s no attempt to sugarcoat the horrors he both undergoes but also inflicts, but in that raw honesty lies the book’s power. This page-turner may have you flinching at the horrors on the page but it’s a beautifully observed character study that well deserves its top spot.
Do you agree with the list? What were some of your favourite novels by Nordic authors that were released in 2024? We’d love to hear your thoughts and recommendations.
