Crime With a Scandinavian Accent

Organizers of the 2025 Petrona Award for the Best Scandinavian Crime Novel of the Year received 31 publisher entries to their competition. From those, judges have developed the following longlist of a dozen nominees representing Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden:

• Dead Island, by Samuel Bjørk,
translated by Charlotte Barslund (Bantam)—Norway
• Murder Under the Midnight Sun, by Stella Blómkvist,
translated by Quentin Bates (Corylus)—Iceland
• The Widows, by Pascal Engman,
translated by Neil Smith (Legend Press)—Sweden
• Deliver Me, by Malin Persson Giolito,
translated by Rachel Willson-Broyles (Simon & Schuster)—Sweden
• The Dancer, by Óskar Guðmundsson, translated by Quentin Bates (Corylus)—Iceland
• Victim, by Jørn Lier Horst and Thomas Enger,
translated by Megan E Turney (Orenda)—Norway
• Blood Ties, by Jo Nesbø,
translated by Robert Ferguson (Harvill Secker)—Norway
• The Sea Cemetery, by Aslak Nore,
translated by Deborah Dawkin (MacLehose Press)—Norway
• Shrouded, by Sólveig Pálsdóttir,
translated by Quentin Bates (Corylus)—Iceland
• The Clues in the Fjord, by Satu Rämö,
translated by Kristian London (Zaffre)—Finland
• Ghost Island, by Max Seeck,
translated by Kristian London (Mountain Leopard Press)—Finland
• Pursued by Death, by Gunnar Staalesen,
translated by Don Bartlett (Orenda)—Norway

This year’s shortlist of candidates is expected on September 18.

The Petrona Award memorializes Maxine Clarke, the British editor, crime-fiction blogger, and “champion of Scandinavian crime fiction” who passed away in December 2012 (Petrona was the name of her long-running blog). Previous recipients include Jógvan Isaksen’s Dead Men Dancing (2024), Pascal Engman’s Femicide (2023), Maria Adolfsson’s Fatal Isles (2022), and Mikael Niemi’s To Cook a Bear (2021).

For more about this prize, refer to the Petrona Award Web site.