“Think less rain-soaked Nordic bleakness and more heat-haze intrigue, with the genre’s familiar beats played in an intentionally off-key rhythm.”

Living near a fictional detective is a risky game. Be it Miss Marple, Inspector Morse or DCI Barnaby in Midsomer Murders, the risk of residents nearby being brutally murdered seems to rise considerably. In Jenny Lund Madsen’s Under the Blazing Sun, the same risk could be said of crime writers.

Lund Madsen’s debut literary thriller, Thirty Days of Darkness, saw author Hannah publicly challenged to write a crime thriller in just 30 days. That book saw Hannah caught up in a real-life murder mystery, but in this sequel, she faces peril yet again.

For Hannah, the crime novel is a lesser form of literature. She yearns to be taken seriously as a “proper” writer. Crime writing is beneath her. Her publisher has booked her onto a TV talk show, but the presenter only wants to draw comparisons with another author dubbed “The Queen of Crime Fiction”.

It’s an interview that doesn’t go as planned, and her publisher gives her a deadline for her long-overdue, already-paid-for, second crime novel. It’s a gleefully meta set-up: a novelist under pressure to deliver a page-turner is forced to live one.

To sweeten the deal, Hannah is offered the use of a private villa to escape the world and focus on her writing. Lightning strikes twice, however, and soon after her arrival, a fellow Danish woman is murdered, and Hannah finds herself high on the local police’s list of chief suspects. From that point on, the book runs on sunlit menace, as every friendly encounter feels as though it could curdle into a clue.

Mix in a complex love triangle involving one of the investigating detectives, run-ins with the Sicilian Mafia and a growing body count, and writing is the last thing on Hannah’s mind.

Hannah may have doubts about the artistic merit of the crime novel, but Lund Madsen’s plot not only follows the required conventions of the genre but also takes an irreverent jibe at them. The multiple red herrings, the stretched and emotionally entangled police force, and the “enthusiastic” amateur sleuth are all included in a slightly tongue-in-cheek manner. The jokes never deflate the tension though; they sharpen it, because this story knows exactly which trick it’s pulling – and when.

Under the Blazing Sun also looks at the process of writing itself, whatever the genre. In Hannah, we see a writer not only at odds with her publisher but also with herself. She may want to write the worthy literary tome, but the reality of making a living as a writer also requires a commercial angle.

Discovering she is actually staying in the holiday villa of fellow author Jørn further fuels her contempt for the crime writer, with the villa containing his personally curated homage to his own books, complete with an example of every weapon he has ever written about. That push-pull between art and pay cheque becomes its own kind of suspense, tightening alongside the murder plot.

Lund Madsen also manages to weave in a wry look at the Scandinavian civic stereotype: an outward perception that society is divided into the purely good and the purely evil, when in fact there is a mix of both in the majority.

Hannah may resent the crime genre, but all the requirements are here: an increasing body count, and a rapidly expanding list of suspects and motives. As befits any good crime novel, there is a suitably dramatic conclusion that finally gives the reluctant author the introduction for her own overdue crime sequel. Even at its most playful, there is a sting in the air: a reminder that reputations, like alibis, can be rewritten overnight.

Paul Russell Garrett’s translation draws the reader into the sun-drenched Sicilian landscape while keeping the pace taut. Think less rain-soaked Nordic bleakness and more heat-haze intrigue, with the genre’s familiar beats played in an intentionally off-key rhythm.

Under the Blazing Sun may not be conventional Nordic noir, but this flight from Denmark to Sicily will offer plenty of wry smiles for fans of the genre in a clever, double-pronged approach.

Under the Blazing Sun by Jenny Lund Madsen, translated by Paul Russell Garrett, is published by Orenda Books on May 21, 2026.