Madelein Hessérus – one of the most compelling voices in contemporary Swedish literature
“’The Elephant’s Foot is a beautiful, lingering novel: the plot is simple but the prose is intense and full of images.”
Josefin Holmström, Svenska Dagbladet
Hessérus, a graduate in Medicine from Uppsala University and a trained dancer from the Swedish Royal Ballet School, started out as a dramatist and wrote several plays for radio, television and the stage. However, it was her two collections of short stories, Not as Beautiful as in Valparaíso and The Dead Queen that introduced her original and graceful style of writing to a wider audience. Since then her novels To Isola and The City Without Women has enthralled readers with their visionary and multi-faceted stories, poetic narratives and sharp criticism of modern urban life.
Her third novel, The Elephant’s Foot, was published in March 2016 marking the 25th anniversary of the disaster in Chernobyl. In it, we follow young, Swedish, biologist Katarina as she faces the perilous nature of the forbidden zone while navigating the politics of a small international team of scientists.
Scientific accuracy is pitted against irrationality, sense against sensibility. Madeleine Hessérus writes about love and human kind’s complex relationship with civilisation and nature in a lucid, eloquent prose.
”I read the book slowly to prolong the pleasure of the novel’s suggestive description of the scientists’ surprisingly passionate existences. Patiently gathering data, aloofness and envy, the irrational disgruntlement /… / Hessérus’ portrayal of the scientists’ expeditions into the zone is a literary achievement. The prose wriggles and almost spills out of the pages in the same way that the trees pierce through abandoned buildings in the real-life town of Pripyat / … / ‘The Elephant’s Foot’ is an oil painting disguised as a novel.”
Inga-Lina Lindqvist, Aftonbladet
”The writing in Madeleine Hessérus’ ‘The Elephant’s Foot’ is startlingly beautiful when she describes how nature is reclaiming the zone, the sealed off area around Chernobyl’s quarantined nuclear power plant.”Milena Bergquist, Femina
Sweden’s coolest policewoman is back!
Anna Karolina Larsson debuted last year with Stolen Baboon a female take on the slick, modern gangster thriller and ”one of the most interesting debuts in the genre”. This suspenseful, literary and above all completely new crime novel was also nominated for the Crimetime Specsavers Debut Award 2015.
Now Anna Karolina Larsson is back with a second novel about her main character, the headstrong, independent and very likable Amanda Paller.
No More Fish in the Sea is a sequel that surprises with its spectacular theme and the way the plot is built around the main characters.
Three years later Amanda is now the mother of twins!
When several cannibalistic murders take place in Stockholm Amanda is put on the case. At each crime scene there is a different murderer, a murderer under the influence of the dreaded cannibal drug. Amanda is convinced the murderers are victims, forced or tricked into taking the drug.
Who is behind the druggings that makes people kill loved family members?
After several years abroad return Adnan to Sweden to clear his name and make up with the past.
The inevitable happens and Amanda and Adnan meet and realize they are connected to the case in more than one way.
Like the debut No More Fish in the Sea is a plot-driven thriller set in the borderland between right and wrong and an austere and fast-paced style characterizes the novel.
The series about Sweden’s coolest police woman cranks up the pace
Leif GW Persson has written about police work in an authentic way and Jens Lapidus has portrayed the career criminals from an insider’s perspective without moralizing. Anna Karolina combines these, cranks up the pace and gives us Sweden’s coolest police woman.
Qwintessa, Valbloggen
It’s hard to find a more action-packed and thrilling book than this one
The plot is complex and gruesome. And terribly exciting in addition. Anna Karolina skilfully connects the different parts of the plot and maintains the pace throughout the book. Her description of the underworld is Lapidus-esque, and gives a good account of the stuff that happens where most of us have never ventured.
Nisse Scherman, DAST
I read without stopping and marvel at the particularly vivid, realistic characters.
What really sets it apart, however, is the sensuality. Never before have I read a Swedish novel that is so concerned with bodies, both at the gym and in bed, and that at the same time manages to describe everything so authentically and eloquently. This is the explanation for my very own ”ok, just one more chapter”.
Magnus Sjöholm, NT
Just like the debut, “No More Fish In the Sea” is an exceptionally well-written and profound crime novel, a worthy sequel to “Stolen Baboon”, and a book that confirms that Anna Karolina is a Swedish crime writer to look out for.
Kerstin Bergman, Crime Garden
After several years with the Stockholm Police department, officer Anna Karolina Larsson decided to use her inside knowledge of Stockholm’s criminal world and write a novel. She enrolled at the Writers’ Academy at Lund University and it soon became obvious that she has great talent.
Not only does she skilfully use her knowledge from her work to describe the police procedures and the criminal world with great authenticity, she also portrays the ties between the characters, the weight of betrayal and expectations and disappointment with seldom seen credibility.
What do you say to a man who only has Seven Days to Live?
Our story starts over two years ago with a conversation between award-winning Swedish journalist and author Carina Bergfeldt and convicted killer Vaughn Ross. He had replied to a letter from the reporter asking for insight into his life as a Death Row inmate. Their meeting was the beginning of a week in Texas and a book that includes a chaplain who has heard the last confessions of 150 killers, a warden who has escorted 88 men and one woman into the death chamber, a woman who loves a condemned killer, a family that wants revenge and a cop whose sworn promise will be fulfilled only once the deadly dose flows into Vaughn Ross’ body.
But it all starts right here, on Death Row, with the man who has Seven Days to Live.
With this, her first, non-fiction title Carina Bergfeldt has once again set our minds ablaze and engaged our hearts. Seven Days to Live is not only an important story that has already been read by over 2.2 million Swedes it is also an emotionally powerful and insightful tale of crime and the capital punishment. The author does not lecture nor does she point fingers but rather tells the nuanced stories of people who have all been affected by the Death Penalty. All of their experiences are different but one unmistakable fact remains; their lives have been changed forever.
Critics have loved it and so will you. So take this chance and read Carina Bergfeldt’s Seven Days to Live. Who know, it may just change your life.
Who will live and who will die?
Don’t miss Falleri, fallera, falleralla, out in stores now.
For the past eight years Swedish and international readers have had the privilege of going on thrilling and suspenseful journeys together with Carin Gerhardsen and her investigative team at the Hammarby Police. Conny Sjöberg has lead us through the most puzzling and gruesome cases meticulously composed by the author’s masterful hand. With each new book more readers have joined the club. Today Carin’s novels can be read in more than 20 languages. She has been no 1 on Barnes & Nobles and on Kindle’s bestselling charts, the books have sold more than one million copies and Carin has had the opportunity to travel the world and promote her authorship.
Now she’s back with the final installment in her internationally best selling Hammarby Series.
Conny Sjöberg and his team are in bad shape when they are called to investigate one of the most horrific crime scenes ever witnessed in Swedish history. Two people have been murdered in broad daylight in central Stockholm. A middle-aged woman and a little boy, brutally beaten to death with a hammer. And this is just the beginning. The beginning of the end.
IT’S HERE! THE LION TAMER BY CAMILLA LÄCKBERG
“She has that remarkable gift for storytelling that is so hard to define and which is fundamental to the appetite for commercial fiction: something that she rarely receives enough praise for.”
Dagens Nyheter
It is January and Fjällbacka is bitterly cold. A half-naked girl is drifting through the snowy forest, out onto a road. The car appears out of nowhere and does not have time to swerve.
When Patrik Hedström and his team receive the alarm about the accident, the girl has already been identified. She disappeared four months earlier on her way home from the local riding school and has not been seen since. Her body bears the signs of unimaginable atrocities and there is a chance that she will not be the last and only victim.
At the same time, Erica Falck is investigating an old family tragedy that led to a man’s death. She pays countless visits to his wife, who was convicted of the murder, without being able to find out what really happened. What is she hiding? Erica suspects there is something wrong. And it appears that the past is casting a shadow over the present.
The latest novel in Camilla Läckberg‘s internationally successful Fjällbacka Series is out and The Lion Tamerhas already gotten rave reviews.
Thomas Engström & Olle Lönnaeus nominated for the award of Best Swedish Crime Novel 2014
This past weekend, during the annual Crime Festival in Sundsvall The Swedish Crime Academy announced their shortlist for Best Swedish Crime Novel 2014 and we’re happy to see not one, but two of Nordin Agency’s authors as strong contenders; Söder om Helvetet (To Hell and Gone) by Thomas Engström and Jonny Liljas skuld (The Payback – Johnny Lilja’s Dilemma) by Olle Lönnaeus.
Both authors have received great praise for their books and last year Thomas Engström won the award for Best Crime Debut with Väster om friheten (The Western Reach of Hell), a prize awarded to Olle Lönnaeus in 2009 for his novel Det som ska sonas (Atonement)
Congratulations to Thomas and Olle – and best of luck!
The winner will be announced on the 22th November.
Parallel Projects for Crime Mastermind Kallentoft
It has been seven years since Mons Kallentoft first introduced himself as one of the most striking new voices in Scandinavian crime fiction in conjunction with the launch of Midwinter Sacrifice (Midvinterblod) – the first book in the successful Malin Fors series. Last year, Kallentoft announced that he was working on a new project together with fellow writer Markus Lutteman, and in June 2014, the readers became acquainted with Zack for the first time.
Mons Kallentoft had been nurturing the idea for several years – to write a series of crime novels loosely inspired by the Hercules myth, but based in 21st century Stockholm. He met Markus Lutteman at an awards ceremony and the pair immediately connected. Together they created the complex young Detective Inspector Zack Herry and his fictional universe: the dark, sinister underbelly of contemporary Stockholm. Their plan is to write twelve books – just like the twelve labours of Hercules.
The first title, Zack, was published by new, innovative publishing house Bookmark in June 2014 and it was not long before the book was top of the charts. The readers have described the book as “modern”, “captivating” and “action-packed”. International rights have been sold to nine territories, including France and the USA.
But fans of Malin Fors do not need to worry. The eighth book in the series, Earth Storm (Jordstorm), will be published at the end of this month and Kallentoft has an outline for another five books about the troubled Linköping detective.
The queen of new Swedish romance
As far back as we can remember romance and love have had a strong presence in literature. With her lates novel Only One Night Simona Ahrnstedt shows us why romance is the largest literary genre in the Western world.
What is romance? That is the most frequently asked question we get from friends, other authors and journalists. Simona Ahrnstedt usually compares the genre to that of crime novels, but instead of solving a case, there is a love story that needs to have a happy ending. The events leading up to this is what separates good romance from great and Simona Ahrnstedt is one of the best.
Her latest, and first contemporary, novel is a game-changer. As pretty and inviting as a box of chocolates it will put all your preconceived notions about romance to shame while elegantly entertaining readers from 15 to 95 in the time honored tradition of all great fiction.
Only One Night (En Enda natt) is a story of revenge, heated power plays and above all: Forbidden Love.
In the glamorous and high-powered setting of the Swedish finance world we meet corporate advisor Natalia De la Grip and magnetic venture capitalist David Hammar. Both have set a strong course in their lives. Proud Natalia, who was born into the upper class’ highest echelons is forging her own way by building an impressive career.
Meanwhile David, a self-made and ruthless billionaire is determined to seek revenge on the people who have hurt him in the past. But David´s plan to take over the De la Grip family business sets him on an inevitable collision course with Natalia. As passion strikes and secrets rise to the surface, unavoidable disaster looms and life-altering decisions must be made.
Strong women, intense plots and a free flowing narrative are what make up the backbone of this author’s storytelling. Her character’s are as compelling as her love stories and she never lets her readers down. That is why Simona Ahrnstedt earns her title as Sweden’s queen of romance.
Once again she has managed to create characters that I like instantaneously. I really appreciate that the women in Simona Ahrnstedt’s novels are self-sufficient, strong and have their own career.
Boklysten
Impossible to put down. Simona Ahrnstedt’s novels invite non-stop reading
Katarina Bivald
Literature that completely breaks all prejudices.
Litteraturmagazinet
New spine chilling horror from Unni Lindell
Brudekisten is number one on the Norwegian bestseller list after one day on the market and has been chosen as book of the month in three major book clubs.
Unni Lindell’s convincing characters and her intimate themes have proved an unbeatable combination and have made her books about Cato Isaksen one of the bestselling crime series in Norway and around the world, and with Brudekisten she confirms her position as Queen of crime in Norway.
12-year-old Maike Hagg, the daughter of a psychiatric patient, fell down the stairs and cracked her head on the stone floor in the basement of Gaustad Psychiatric Hospital
Twenty-five years later the statute of limitations for murder is coming up and Emmy Hammer and Aud Johnsen meet up to talk about what really happened.
But dusting off old memories can be dangerous. When the past meets the present, fear and hatred draw a cold-blooded killer out from the shadows.
Slowly the culture of Gaustad Hospital is revealed – something lurks in its past, obscured by other issues and in the catacombs of the abandoned building complex Unni Lindell conjures up a classic horror movie atmosphere. In her unrivalled and characteristic style dark moods is mixed with everyday life and with surprises, twists and turn she captivates contemporary crime readers offering superb entertainment, but also a thought-provoking read.
Superbly executed, nearly ingenious
Professor Hans H. Skei, Professor in litteratur at Oslo Universitet
With The Angel is a Devil Unni Lindell has pretty much hit the bull’s eye.
Torbjørn Ekelund, Dagbladet
Lindell really knows the art of telling a suspenseful story.
Sindre Hovdenakk, VG
A Well composed and intriguing mystery that will appeal to many readers.
Torbjørn Ekelund, Dagbladet
Unni Lindell meets all the expectations in the crime genre and her clever narrative deceives the reader more than once. This is the great art of illusion.
Geir Rakvaag, Dagsavisen.