Mystery Reads

Kathy Mallory, Carol O'Connell’s title character, possesses a back-story similar to Lisbeth’s in its bleakness. While bright and talented, Kathy is psychologically damaged. As an orphaned street kid she survived by being fierce and cunning until she was captured and eventually adopted by a homicide detective, Louis Markowitz, and his wife. Kathy is tough and breaks the law routinely if she feels it necessary to accomplish her goals.

Mallory’s Oracle starts the series. Markowitz was investigating the murder of two wealthy, elderly women when he’s found dead next to a third victim. Obsessed with finding the killer, Kathy supplements her childhood survival skills with computer skills and her father’s case details in pursuit of her father’s killer.

Soderberg offers richly complex characters and a faster-paced story than Larsson without Larsson's emphasis on backstory and research techniques. And while Sophie seems the polar opposite of Lisbeth when readers first meet her, well. . .

When Sophie Brinkmann meets Hector Guzman, her life is perfectly uneventful. She is a nurse and a single mother, living with her son in a sleepy Stockholm suburb. She likes Guzman's quiet charm and easy smile; she likes the way he welcomes her into his family. She quickly learns, though, that his smooth facade masks something much more sinister. This is the first installment in a Trilogy.

Shortly before she’s due to take the bar exam Chloe Larson is tortured and sexually assaulted, leaving her physically and psychologically maimed. Traumatized by her ordeal, Chloe suffers a breakdown.

Twelve years later she’s changed everything from her hair color to her lifestyle and works as an assistant chief attorney in the Miami-Dade County State Attorney's office. One day Chloe’s prosecuting a suspect only to recognize her rapist when he begins to speak. But the statue of limitations on her attack has run out which means he’ll never pay for his crime against her. If she remains silent and continues to prosecute him for the crime he’s currently charged with and someone learns of their connection, he could walk free. But prosecuting him is her last chance at retribution.

Stevens—like Larsson—offers a female character who is independent, smart and computer-savvy with a tormented past. Both authors offer fast-paced, compelling and gritty mysteries series. Begin with The informationist.

Vanessa "Michael" Munroe deals in information—expensive information—working for corporations, heads of state, private clients, and anyone else who can pay for her unique brand of expertise. Born to missionary parents in lawless central Africa, Munroe took up with an infamous gunrunner and his mercenary crew when she was just fourteen. As his protégé, she earned the respect of the jungle's most dangerous men, cultivating her own reputation for years until something sent her running.

After almost a decade building a new life and lucrative career from her home base in Dallas, she's never looked back. Until now.

A Texas oil billionaire has hired her to find his daughter who vanished in Africa four years ago. It's not her usual line of work, but she can't resist the challenge. Pulled deep into the mystery of the missing girl, Munroe finds herself back in the lands of her childhood, betrayed, cut off from civilization, and left for dead. If she has any hope of escaping the jungle and the demons that drive her, she must come face-to-face with the past that she's tried for so long to forget.

A good match for fans of Henning Mankell, Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö. Fossum's U.S. debut, the fifth in her Inspector Sejer series, displays her mastery of psychological suspense. Disarmingly simple prose disguises Fossum’s complicated plot. And richly drawn characters reveal much about Norwegian society, though the setting isn't distinctive.

A 6 year-old girl goes missing. While the child reappears unharmed, the body of Annie, a well-liked 15 year-old, is discovered during the search. Inspector Konrad Sejer an aging, secretive cop still grieving for his late wife, and his eager young assistant Jacob Skarre undertake the distasteful job of cajoling secrets from the tight-lipped townspeople.

A dark, intricately plotted, fast-paced, politically charged thriller.

In 1975, six young people stormed the West German embassy in Stockholm, taking the entire staff hostage. They demanded the immediate release of members of the Baader- Meinhof group being held as prisoners in West Germany, but twelve hours into the siege, the embassy was blown up, two hostages were dead, and many others were injured, including the captors.

The story, based on real events linked to the still-unsolved assassination of Swedish prime minister Olof Palme, picks up in 1989, as the seemingly unrelated stabbing death of a civil servant is investigated by officers Bo Jarnebring and Anna Holt. Under the supervision of their cantankerous, prejudiced, and corrupt superior, Evert Bäckström, the case gets surreptitiously swept under the rug, and the victim is tied to a string of sex-related crimes, despite evidence to the contrary.

Another ten years pass before the confounding truth about the murder victim is unearthed. Just as Lars Martin Johansson, a friend of Jarnebring’s, begins his tenure as the head of the Swedish Security Police, he inherits two files from his predecessor, one of which is on the murder victim—who turns out to have been a collaborator in the 1975 embassy takeover. Revealed now are not only the identities of the other collaborators but also the identity of the murderer: an intelligent, capable lawyer a heartbeat away from the top position in Sweden’s Ministry of Defense. With masterfully interlaced plotlines pulled from the darkest corners of political power and corruption, Another Time, Another Life bristles with wit, insight, and intensity.

Second in Inspector Erik Winter series. Swedish crime-novelist Edwardson writes thrillers that bristle with psychological intrigue.

Chief Inspector Erik Winter investigates the murder of Helene Anderson, whose body was found in a local park. Armed with few clues, Winter soon learns that the young woman left behind a child who may still be alive. Further probing leads him more than two decades back in time to a bank robbery in Denmark that a very young Helene likely witnessed. (The perpetrators remain at large, a source of great frustration for local law enforcement.) Winter travels to Denmark, and soon a cold case turns hot.

Back on the home front, the inspector must contend with the annual Gothenburg Party, a hedonistic free-for-all that prompts riots among nativist gangs. This time Edwardson compensates for a somewhat sluggish plot with a cast of compelling characters and vivid renderings of a landscape that is by turns beautiful and bleak.

Adler-Olsen offers a big, leisurely Scandinavian thriller with dark hints of conspiracy, and an atmospheric, suspenseful story. Adler-Olsen's writing is not quite as dark as Larsson's and offers slightly more humor.

Chief detective Carl Mørck used to be one of Copenhagen's best homicide detectives. Then a bullet almost took his life. Two of his colleagues weren't so lucky, and Carl, who didn't draw his weapon, blames himself. So a promotion is the last thing Carl expects. Carl's been selected to run Department Q, with a stack of cold cases to keep him company.

A fast-paced, suspensful and compelling thriller from another Swede.

In the frigid clime of Tumba, Sweden, a gruesome triple homicide attracts the interest of Detective Inspector Joona Linna, who demands to investigate the murders. The killer is still at large, and there's only one surviving witness--the boy whose family was killed before his eyes. Whoever committed the crimes wanted this boy to die: he's suffered more than one hundred knife wounds and lapsed into a state of shock. Desperate for information, Linna sees only one option: hypnotism. He enlists Dr. Erik Maria Bark to mesmerize the boy, hoping to discover the killer through his eyes.

Like Lrsson's series, The Son is a gripping Scandinavian crime novel, in which vengeance drives much of the intricately plotted, fast-paced narrative. Political conspiracies also play a part in both books.

The author of the internationally best-selling Harry Hole series now gives us an electrifying stand-alone novel set amid Oslo's hierarchy of corruption, from which one very unusual young man is about to propel himself into a mission of brutal revenge.