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fictionfromafar · 3 years

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Unmissable International Crime Fiction Novels from August 2021

3 August: The Night Singer by Johanna Mo, translated by Alice Menzies, Penguin Books

Police detective Hannah Duncker didn’t expect to return to her native Öland. She fled after her father’s murder conviction and returns to make peace with her shame. She has a new job with the local police and a nosy new partner. A fifteen-year-old’s death catapults her into a murder investigation that resurrects ghosts from her previous life. As she hunts for the truth, she must confront the people she abandoned. Not all are pleased to see her back home, and she soon learns that digging through the past comes with consequences.

5 August: The Soul Breaker by Sebastian Fitzek, translated by Jamie Bulloch, Head Of Zeus

He doesn’t kill them, or mutilate them. But he leaves them completely dead inside, paralysed and catatonic. His only trace is a note left in their hands. There are three known victims when suddenly the abductions stop. The Soul Breaker has tired of his game, it seems. Meanwhile, a man has been found in the snow outside an exclusive psychiatric clinic. He has no recollection of who he is, or why he is there. Unable to match him to any of the police’s missing people, the nurses call him Casper. My review of Passenger 23:

Fiction From Afar

Passenger 23 by Sebastian Fitzek Passenger 23 By Sebastian Fitzek Translated by Jamie Bulloch Head Of Zeus “Every year on average 23 people

The Woman in the Blue Cloak by Deon Meyer, Hodder

The brilliant two-time-frame novella The Woman in the Blue Cloak has not appeared before in mass-market paperback. It is joined here by several shorter stories, published for the first time in book form.

The title story features Meyer's much-loved detective Benny Griessel at a key moment in his relationship with his new love, Alexa.

The Bucket List: An Agent John Adderley Novel by Peter Mohlin & Peter Nystrom, The Overlook Press

The Bucket List starts when undercover FBI Agent John Adderley wakes up in a hospital bed in Baltimore with extensive gunshot wounds. He knows he’s lucky to be alive. And just a few beds away is the man who 24 hours ago pointed a gun to his head.

10 August: Cold Sun by Anita Sivakumaran Dialogue Books

Bangalore. Three high-profile women murdered, their bodies draped in identical red saris. When the killer targets the British Foreign Minister’s ex-wife, Scotland Yard sends the troubled, brilliant DI Vijay Patel to lend his expertise to the Indian police investigation. Stranger in a strange land, ex-professional cricketer Patel must battle local resentment and his own ignorance of his ancestral country, while trying to save his failing relationship back home.

17 August: Velvet Was the Night by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Jo Fletcher Books

1970s Mexico City: while student protests and political unrest consume the city, Maite escapes from her humdrum life in the stories of passion and danger that fill the latest issue of Secret Romance. She is deeply envious of her neighbour, Leonora, a beautiful art student who lives the life of excitement and intrigue Maite craves – so when she disappears under suspicious circumstances, Maite jumps at the chance to uncover Leonora’s secrets.

No Honour by Awais Khan, Orenda Books

A young woman defies convention in a small Pakistani village, with devastating results for her and her family. A stunning, immense beautiful novel about courage, family and the meaning of love, when everything seems lost

19 August: Come Hell Or High Water by Christian Unge, MacLehose Press

The first in a new Swedish crime series featuring Tekla Berg – a fearless doctor with a remarkable photographic memory. With 85% per cent burns to his body and a 115% risk of dying, it’s a miracle the patient is still alive. That he made it this far is thanks to Tekla Berg, an emergency physician whose unorthodox methods and photographic memory are often the difference between life and death.

Bread: The Bastards of Pizzofalcone by Maurizio de Giovanni, Europa Editions

Sometimes it takes facing a formidable adversary to truly know one’s worth. The Bastards of Pizzofalcone may have found just that: when the brutal murder of a baker rattles the city, they are ready to investigate. There’s nothing they wouldn’t do to prove themselves to their community. But this time the police are divided: for the special anti-mob branch, the local mafia is doubtlessly responsible for the crime, but the Bastards are not so sure and think there may be another reason for the murder of the renowned artisan, whose traditionally baked bread attracted customers from far and wide. A rivalry between the policeman and the magistrate is formed, one that, in the end, will extend to more than just their work lives.

Of Fangs and Talons by Nicolas Mathieu, Sceptre

When a factory that employs most of a small town is scheduled to close - to the despair of the workers and disdain of the overlords - things start to fall apart. The disenfranchised factory workers have nothing left to lose. Martel, the trade union rep with innumerable tattoos and Bruce, the body-builder addicted to steroids resort to desperate measures. A bungled kidnapping on the streets of Strasbourg goes horribly wrong and they find themselves falling prey to the machinations of the criminal underworld.

End Of Summer by Anders De La Motte, trans Neil Smith , Zaffre

Summer 1983: Four-year-old Billy chases a rabbit in the fields behind his house. But when his mother goes to call him in, Billy has disappeared. Never to be seen again.

Today: Veronica is a bereavement counsellor. She's never fully come to turns with her mother's suicide after her brother Billy's disappearance. When a young man walks into her group, he looks familiar and talks about the trauma of his friend's disappearance in 1983. Could Billy still be alive after all this time?

Resilience by Bogdan Hrib, translated by Marina Sofia, Corylus Books

Stelian Munteanu has had enough of being an international man of mystery: all he wants to do is make the long-distance relationship with his wife Sofia work. But when the notorious Romanian businessman Pavel Coman asks him to investigate the death of his daughter in the north of England, he reluctantly gets involved once more in what proves to be a tangled web of shady business dealings and political conspiracies. Moving rapidly between London, Newcastle, Bucharest and Iasi, this novel shows just how easy it is to fall prey to fake news and social media manipulation.

31 August: My Name is Jensen by Heidi Amsinck, Muswell Press

Guilty. One word on a beggar’s cardboard sign. And now he is dead, stabbed in a wintry Copenhagen street, the second homeless victim in as many weeks. Dagbladet reporter Jensen, stumbling across the body on her way to work, calls her ex lover DI Henrik Jungersen. As, inevitably, old passions are rekindled, so are old regrets, and that is just the start of Jensen’s troubles. The front page is an open goal, but nothing feels right….. When a third body turns up, it seems certain that a serial killer is on the loose. But why pick on the homeless? And is the link to an old murder case just a coincidence? With her teenage apprentice Gustav, Jensen soon finds herself putting everything on the line to discover exactly who is guilty …

2 September: The Second Woman by Louise Mey, translated by Louise Rogers Lalaurie, Pushkin Vertigo

Missing persons don’t always stay that way. Sandrine lives alone, rarely speaking to anyone other than her colleagues. She is resigned to her solitary life, until she sees on TV a man despairing for his wife who has mysteriously disappeared. Sandrine is drawn to him and eventually the two strike up a relationship. When the man’s wife reappears, Sandrine is forced to confront the truth about him.

The Wrong Goodbye by Toshihiko Yahagi, translated by Alfred Birnbaum, MacLehose Press

In a nod to Raymond Chandler, The Wrong Goodbye pits homicide detective Eiji Futamura against a shady Chinese business empire and U.S. military intelligence in the docklands of recession hit Japan. After the frozen corpse of immigrant barman Tran Binh Long washes up in midsummer near Yokosuka U.S. Navy Base, Futamura meets a strange customer from Tran’s bar. Vietnam vet pilot Billy Lou Bonney talks Futamura into hauling three suitcases of “goods” to Yokota US Air Base late at night and flies off leaving a dead woman behind. My review:

The Wrong Goodbye

The Wrong Goodbye An Eiji Futamura Investigation by Toshihiko Yahagi #JanuaryInJapan The Wrong Goodbye An Eiji Futamura Investigation by Tos

FICTION FROM AFAR

28 September

The Ice Coven by Max Seeck, Berkley

Investigator Jessica Niemi is in a race against time to find the link between a body with strange markings that has washed up on a frigid shore in Finland and two mysterious disappearances in this terrifying new novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Witch Hunter.

30 September

The Jealousy Man and Other Stories by Jo Nesbo, Harvill Secker

This outstanding collection of short stories showcases all the writing skill that has made Jo Nesbo the undisputed ‘king of all crime writers’ (Daily Express) and a repeat Sunday Times #1 bestseller. Filled with dark intrigue, twists and unforgettable characters, these page-turners will have you reading late into the night.

Wild Shores by Maria Adolfsson, Zaffre

One terrible truth will create a perfect storm. While her colleagues enjoy the seasonal festivities, DI Karen Hornby is called to investigate a suspicious death on the northernmost island of Doggerland. But how close to home is the truth of the case...

Night Hunters by Oliver Bottini, MacLehose Press

Over the course of several days one hot summer, a female student from Freiburg disappears, a father is murdered in a brutal attack, a teenage boy drowns in the Rhine in suspicious circumstances. It soon becomes evident to Chief Inspector Louise Boni and her colleagues at Freiburg’s criminal police that the three cases are connected – and that others are now in terrible danger.

The Antarctica of Love by Sara Stridsberg, MacLehose Press

A heartrending existential drama by the acclaimed Swedish writer Sara Stridsberg, The Antarctica of Love is an unfliching testament of a woman on the margins, a tale of family lost and found, and a report of a murder in the voice of the victim. This novel of life after death unfolds in brief vignettes, brimming with unexpected tenderness and hope.

7 October: The Stoning: Peter Papathanasiou, MacLehose Press

A small town in outback Australia wakes to a crime of medieval savagery.A local schoolteacher is found taped to a tree and stoned to death. Suspicion instantly falls on the refugees at the new detention centre on Cobb’s northern outskirts. Tensions are high, between whites and Aboriginals, between immigrants and the towniesStill mourning the recent death of his father, Detective Sergeant George Manolis returns to his childhood hometown to investigate.

Lemon by Kwon Yeo-sun House Of Zeus

Focusing on the unsolved murder of teenage girl, this literary crime novel offers insights into gender, class and religion. In the summer of 2002, my big sister Hae-on was murdered. She was beautiful, intelligent, and only nineteen years old. Two boys were questioned, but the case was never solved. Her killer still walks free.

The Survivors by Alex Shulman, Little Brown Dog

Three brothers return to the family cottage by the lake where, more than two decades earlier, a catastrophe changed the course of their lives. Now, they are here to scatter their mother’s ashes – young men, estranged but bound together by the history that defines them. Their lives have been spent competing for their father’s favour and their mother’s love, in a household more like a minefield than a home. What really happened that summer day when everything was blown to pieces?

12 October: The Corpse Flower by Anne Mette Hancock Crooked Lane Books

It’s early September in Copenhagen, the rain has been coming down for weeks, and 36-year-old journalist Heloise Kaldan is in the middle of a nightmare. One of her sources has been caught lying, and she could lose her job over it. And then she receives the first in a series of cryptic and ominous letters from an alleged killer.

14 October Riccardino by Andrea Camilleri, MacMillan

The long-awaited last novel in the bestselling Inspector Montalbano series “At eighty, I foresaw Montalbano’s departure from the scene, I got the idea and I didn’t let it slip away. So I found myself writing this novel which is the final chapter; the last book in the series. And I sent it to my publisher saying to keep it in a drawer and to publish it only when I am gone.” –Andrea Camilleri

The Lonely Ones by Hakan Nesser, MacMillan

Begins in 1969. Six young people arrive in Uppsala. Different circumstances push the three young couples together and, over the course of a few years, they become friends. Years later, a lecturer at Lund University is found dead at the bottom of a cliff in the woods close to Kymlinge. And chillingly, it is the very same spot where one of the Uppsala students died thirty-five years before

28 October The Hideout by Camilla Grebe, Zaffre

Inertia is an eerie psychological thriller from the award-winning Swedish bestselling author Camilla Grebe. When 18-year old Samuel finds himself at the centre of a drug deal gone wrong, he is forced to go underground to escape the police and an infamous drug lord.

The Commandments by Oskar Gudmundsson Corylus Books

On a cold winter morning in 1995, Anton, a 19-year-old boy, met a priest outside Glerárkirkja in Akureyri. After that, he was never seen again. Two decades later a priest is found murdered in the church in Grenivík. When the police investigate the case, they finds that a deacon has also been executed inside Akureyri.

Punishment of a Hunter: Yulia Yakovleva, Pushkin Vertigo

1930s Leningrad: As a mood of fear cloaks the city, Investigator Vasily Zaitsev is called on to investigate a series of bizarre and seemingly motiveless murders. In each case the victim is curiously dressed and posed in extravagantly arranged settings.

Hilde Vandermeeren: The Scorpion’s Head Pushkin Vertigo

Shortly after a fractious weekend away with her family, Gaelle wakes up injured in a psychological hospital in Berlin. Her son is is a coma and the police suspect her of attempting to murder him. With no memory what happened but convinced of her innocence Gaelle escapes and begins a determined hunt for the truth

28 October Cold as Hell by Lilja Sigurdardottir, Orenda Books

Icelandic sisters Áróra and Ísafold live in different countries and aren‘t on speaking terms, but when their mother loses contact with Ísafold, Áróra reluctantly returns to Iceland to find her sister. But she soon realizes that her sister isn’t avoiding her … she has disappeared, without trace.

Here is my review of Betrayal:

Crimes In Translation

Betrayal by Lilja Sigurðardóttir Betrayal by Lilja Sigurðardóttir, translated by Quentin Bates, Orenda Books 2020 This is the second book

The Rabbit Factor by Antti Toumainen, Orenda Books

What makes life perfect? Insurance mathematician Henri Koskinen knows the answer because he calculates everything down to the very last decimal. And then, for the first time, Henri is faced with the incalculable. After suddenly losing his job, Henri inherits an adventure park from his brother – its peculiar employees and troubling financial problems included. The worst of the financial issues appear to originate from big loans taken from criminal quarters … and some dangerous men are very keen to get their money back.

2 November Bricklayers: Selva Almada, Charco Press

Oscar Tamai and Elvio Miranda, the patriarchs of two families of brickmakers, have for years nursed a mutual hatred, but their teenage sons, Pájaro and Ángelito, somehow fell in love. Brickmakers begins as Pájaro and Marciano, Ángelito’s older brother, lie dying in the mud at the base of a Ferris wheel. Inhabiting a dreamlike state between life and death, they recall the events that forced them to pay the price of their fathers’ petty feud.

My review of Dead Girls:

Dead Girls — Charco Press

Dead Girls By Selva Almada Dead Girls By Selva Almada Translated by Annie McDermott, Charco Press Billed as journalist fiction, “Dead Gi

FICTION FROM AFAR

4 November The Night Will Be Long Santiago Gamboa, Europa Editions

When a horribly violent confrontation occurs outside of Cauca, Colombia, only a young boy is around to witness it. But no sooner does the violence happen than it disappears, vanished without a trace. Nobody claims to have seen anything. Nobody claims to have heard anything. That is, until an anonymous accusation catalyzes a dangerous investigation into the deep underbelly of the Christian churches present today in Latin America.

11 November The Shadows of Men by Abir Mukherjee Harvill Secker

When a Hindu theologian is found murdered in his home, the city is on the brink of all-out religious war. Can officers of the Imperial Police Force, Captain Sam Wyndham and Sergeant Surendranath Banerjee track down those responsible in time to stop a bloodbath? Set at a time of heightened political tension, beginning in atmospheric Calcutta and taking the detectives all the way to bustling Bombay presents Wyndham and Banerjee with an unprecedented challenge.

Turf Wars: Oliver Norek, translated by Nick Caistor, MacLehose Press

Since Capitaine Coste and his team’s last case, calm appears to have returned to the SDPJ93 – but not for long. The summary execution of three young dealers – one them shot in the head in full view of a police surveillance team – is the signal for hell to be unleashed in the suburb of Seine-Saint Denis.

The Lost and the Damned

The Lost And The Damned by Olivier Norek The Lost And The Damned Olivier Norek, translated by Nick Caistor, MacLehose Press Aside from th

FICTION FROM AFAR

16 November The Deathwatch Beetle by Kjell Eriksson, Minotaur Book

Four years have passed since Cecilia Karlsson disappeared from the island of Gräsö in Roslagen. When Ann Lindell receives a tip that she has been seen alive she cannot help getting involved, even though she is no longer with the police.

25 November Question of Guilt by Jorn Lier Horst, Penguin

In 1999, seventeen-year-old Tone Vaterland was killed on her way home from work. Desperate for a conviction the police deemed the investigation an open-and-shut case and sent her spurned boyfriend, Danny Momrak, down for murder. 20 years later William Wisting receives a puzzling letter. It suggests the wrong man was convicted for Tone’s death and the real murderer is still out there, and could kill again. . .

December Will To Kill: RV Rama Pushkin Vertigo

Aging and wheelchair-bound patriarch Bhaskar Fernandez has finally reclaimed his family property after a bitter legal battle, and now wants to reunite his aggrieved relatives. So, he invites them to remote Greybrooke Manor in the misty Nilgiris –a mansion that has played host to several sudden deaths; a colonial edifice that stands alone in a valley that is said to be haunted by the ghost of an Englishman. But Bhaskar has other, more practical problems to deal with.

Skin Deep by Antonia Lassa, translated by Jacky Collins, Corylus Books

The corpse of an elderly millionaire is discovered brutally scarred with acid burns. Her young lover is the chief suspect but the authorities admit they are baffled. It will take the intervention of private detective Albert Larten to explore all the complexities of desire, and ultimately reveal the truth.

Erin by Cyril Carrère, trans David Warriner

Erin Silva is struggling to get a grip. She’s young, naive, and has a deep connection to those she loves. But she’s not as fragile as she seems. As she prepares to take over the family business—in spite of some maternal reticence—she finds herself caught up in a chain of ill-fated events. It’s distressing for Erin to stir up the pain of the past, but she’s determined to find out the truth as she sets out to track down those responsible and make them pay. Even if it means letting go of the last illusions that remain of the life she once knew.

#crime fiction #crimeintranslation #european literature #nordicnoir #french noir #latinamericancrimefiction

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