Reading, Reading, Reading

and that's included a lot of Nordic and Scandinavian noir and crime novels recently. I always read widely and I'm not at all sure of why these particular books have caught my fancy and I'm reading so many more at the moment but I am. It's way beyond how I'm always on the look out for the next Jo Nesbo, for instance, and have devoured all of Henk Mankell's Kurt Wallender novels as well as watching the Swedish TV version (with the help of the SBS sub titles) as well as the English language adaptation of the novels starring Kenneth Brannagh.

None of which explains my recent urge to read Nordic noir almost exclusively. I say almost because I managed to slot in Six Four, a Japanese police investigation along with lots of police politics by Hideo Yokoyama, The Shadow Land by Elizabeth Kostova (a mystery set in Rumania) and Wild Seed, The Parable of the Sower and Kindred by Octavia E. Butler along the way. Can't entirely abandon my fantasy and science fiction interests. I guess my reading choices might be in part because I've enjoyed some recent television series on SBS, the Australian channel that has a lot of programs in languages other than English. I especially liked Trapped and Midnight Sun both of which involved police investigations in isolated parts of the world - Trapped is set in rural Iceland and Midnight Sun in a Swedish mining town above the Arctic Circle in midsummer and coping with the climatic extremes forms an important part of the background of both.

Why isn't important, though, is it, because I thought you might like to see what I've been reading. So here's the list of Scandinavian books I've finished in the past month - I still have a few to read on my Kindle. Some I've enjoyed more than others but I can't say that I've been disappointed in any of them.

So, in no particular order, here is what I've been reading:

The Dying Detective by Leif G W Persson

Hellfire by Karin Fossum

Frozen Out by Quentin Bates - yes, he's English but the setting is Scandinavian.

Where Roses Never Die by Gunnar Staalesen

The Crow Girl by Erik Axl Sund

The Hummingbird by Karl Hiekkapelto

The Bird Tribunal by Agnes Ravatn

Faceless Killers: Kurt Wallander by Henk Mankell. This one's a reread.