Who Will Pick Up the Petrona?

Out of a collection of 28 books—submitted from six countries—all vying to take home the 2021 Petrona Award for the Best Scandinavian Crime Novel of the Year, that prize’s organizers have chosen half a dozen finalists. They were announced this morning:

• A Necessary Death, by Anne Holt,
translated by Anne Bruce (Corvus; Norway)
• Death Deserved, by Jørn Lier Horst and Thomas Enger,
translated by Anne Bruce (Orenda; Norway)
• The Secret Life of Mr. Roos, by Håkan Nesser,
translated by Sarah Death (Mantle; Sweden)
• To Cook a Bear, by Mikael Niemi,
translated by Deborah Bragan-Turner (MacLehose Press; Sweden)
• The Seven Doors, by Agnes Ravatn,
translated by Rosie Hedger (Orenda; Norway)
• Gallows Rock, by Yrsa Sigurðardóttir,
translated by Victoria Cribb (Hodder & Stoughton; Iceland)

To read the judges’ comments about each work, click here.

The Petrona Award, established back in 2013, derives its name from a blog written by Maxine Clarke, a British editor and “champion of Scandinavian crime fiction,” who had died the year before that. This competition 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.”

Euro Crime notes that “The winning title, usually announced at the international crime-fiction convention CrimeFest, will now be announced on Thursday, 4 November 2021. The winning author and the translator of the winning title will both receive a cash prize, and the winning author will receive a full pass to and a guaranteed panel at CrimeFest 2022.”

Last year’s Petrona Award recipient was Finnish writer Antti Tuomainen, who captured the honor with his humorous novel Little Siberia (Orenda), translated by David Hackston.

Congratulations to every one of the 2021 nominees!