Spotlighting Scandi Crime

Six “outstanding crime novels from Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden” have found places on the shortlist of nominees for the 2017 Petrona Award for Best Scandinavian Crime Novel of the Year. According to the Euro Crime blog, those contenders—half of which were published by Orenda Books—are:

• The Exiled, by Kati Hiekkapelto, translated by David Hackston (Orenda Books; Finland)
• The Dying Detective, by Leif G.W. Persson, translated by Neil Smith (Doubleday; Sweden)
• The Bird Tribunal, by Agnes Ravatn, translated by Rosie Hedger (Orenda Books; Norway)
• Why Did You Lie? by Yrsa Sigurđardóttir, translated by Victoria Cribb (Hodder & Stoughton; Iceland)
• Where Roses Never Die, by Gunnar Staalesen, translated by Don Bartlett (Orenda Books; Norway)
• The Wednesday Club, by Kjell Westö, translated by Neil Smith (MacLehose Press; Finland)

The name of this year’s winning work will be announced in Bristol, England, during a “gala dinner” on Saturday, May 21, to be held as part of 2017’s CrimeFest (May 18-21).

Mystery Fanfare notes that the Petrona Award was “established to celebrate the work of the late Maxine Clarke, one of the first online crime-fiction reviewers and bloggers, [and] is open to crime fiction in translation, either written by a Scandinavian author or set in Scandinavia and published in the UK in the previous calendar year.”

Congratulations to all of the nominees!