If You Like: Stieg Larsson

If you Like:

STIEG LARSSON Have you read the popular author Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and The Girl Who Played with Fire or The Girl who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest?

Compiled by Elma Lugo

Design by Sara Roye

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

FIC LARSSON The disappearance forty years ago of Harriet Vanger, a young scion of one of the wealthiest families in Sweden, gnaws at her octogenarian uncle, Henrik Vanger. He is determined to know the truth about what he believes was her murder. He hires crusading journalist Mikael Blomkvist, recently at the wrong end of a libel case, to get to the bottom of Harriet’s disappearance. Lisbeth Salander, a twenty-four-year-old, pierced, tattooed genius hacker; possessed of the hard-earned wisdom of someone twice her age--and a terrifying capacity for ruthlessness--assists Blomkvist with the investigation. This unlikely team discovers a vein of nearly unfathomable iniquity running through the Vanger family, an astonishing corruption at the highest echelon of Swedish industrialism-and a surprising connection between themselves.--From publisher description.

The success of Stieg Larsson’s books has roused and created interest in Scandinavian crime fiction. Luckily, there are many other authors whose books you may enjoy. Take a look at the following selections:

Faceless Killers: A Mystery

by Mankell, Henning MYS MANKELL It was a senselessly violent crime. On a cold night in a remote Swedish farmhouse, an elderly farmer is bludgeoned to death and his wife is left to die with a noose around her neck. And as if this didn’t present enough problems for the Ystad police inspector, Kurt Wallander, the dying woman’s last word is foreign, leaving the police the one tangible clue they have. It also could be the match that inflames Sweden’s already smoldering anti-immigrant sentiments. In this case, unlike the situation with his ex-wife, his estranged daughter, or the beautiful but married young prosecutor who has piqued his interest, Wallander finds a problem he can handle. He quickly becomes obsessed with solving the crime before the already tense situation explodes, but he soon comes to realize that it will require all of his reserves of energy and dedication to solve.

Last Rituals: an Icelandic Novel of Secret Symbols, Medieval Witchcraft and Modern Murder

by Yrsa Sigurðardóttir MYS YRSASIGU After the body of a young German student - with his eyes cut out and strange symbols carved into his chest - is discovered at a university in Reykjavik, the police waste no time in making an arrest. The victim’s family isn’t convinced they have the right man, however, so they ask Thora

Gudmundsdottir, attorney and single mother of two, to investigate. The fee is considerable - more than enough to make things a bit easier for the struggling lawyer and her children. It’s not long before Thora and Matthew Reich, her new associate, discover something unusual about the deceased student: He had been obsessed with the country’s grisly history of torture, execution, and witch hunts - a topic made all the more peculiar by the fact that unlike witch hunts in other countries, those in Iceland had targeted men not women. As Thora and Matthew dig deeper, they make the connection between long-bygone customs and the student’s murder. But the shadow of dark traditions conceals secrets in both the past and the present, and the investigators soon realize that nothing is as it seems and that no one can be trusted.

Echoes from the Dead

by Theorin, Johan MYS THEORIN Twenty years after Jens disappeared without a trace from the island of Oland, a package is mailed to the boy’s grandfather that contains the worn and mended shoe of a child, prompting the grandfather to contact the child’s mother, resume the hunt for the boy, and make a shocking connection between Jens’s disappearance and the island’s most notorious murder case.

The Girl Who Played with Fire

FIC LARSSON On the eve of publisher Mikael Blomkvist’s story about sex trafficking between Eastern Europe and Sweden, two investigating reporters are murdered. Even more shocking for Mikael Blomkvist: the fingerprints found on the murder weapon belong to Lisbeth Salander--the troubled, wise-beyond-her-years genius hacker who came to his aid years before.

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest FIC LARSSON Lisbeth Salander—the heart of Larsson’s two previous novels—is under close supervision in the intensive care unit of a Swedish city hospital. She’s fighting for her life in more ways than one: when she’s well enough, she’ll stand trial for three murders. With the help of her friend, journalist Mikael Blomkvist, she will have to prove her innocence, and to identify the corrupt politicians who have allowed the vulnerable, like herself, to suffer abuse. And, on her own, she will plot her revenge—against the man who tried to kill her and the government institutions that very nearly destroyed her life.

The Ice Princess

The Redbreast

by Läckberg, Camilla FIC LACKBERG Returning to her hometown of Fjallbacka after the funeral of her parents, writer Erica Falck finds a community on the brink of tragedy. The death of her childhood friend, Alex, is just the beginning. Her wrists slashed, her body frozen in an ice-cold bath, it seems that she has taken her own life.

by Nesbø, Jo FIC NESBO A tale moving from the final months of World War II to the present, and from the Russian front to contemporary South Africa, follows the dual adventures of a freedom-seeking war martyr and an alcoholic police officer who is drawn into a mystery with past origins.

Leather Maiden

by Larsson, Åsa MYS LARSSON When a dead woman turns up on a frozen lake, her body bearing unmistakable signs of torture, Inspector Anna-Maria Mella enlists attorney Rebecka Martinsson to help her unravel a complicated web of dark secrets, perversion, obsession, and murder.

The Black Path

by Lansdale, Joe R. MYS LANDALE After a scandalous affair costs him his job in Houston, Cason Statler - Gulf War veteran and Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist - returns home to the small east Texas town of Camp Rapture. Cason is a wreck. He drinks too much, he’s stalking his ex-girlfriend, and he’s wallowing in envy of his successful older brother. To get back on his feet, he takes a job at the local paper, and when he stumbles across his predecessor’s notes on a cold case murder file, he thinks he’s found the thing that’ll keep him out of trouble. No such luck. The further he digs into the case, the more certain he is that the unsolved crime is connected to a series of eerie, inexplicable events that have recently occurred in town. And he knows his suspicions are right on when he finds himself dragged into a deadly game of blackmail and murder that clearly has evil as its only goal.

Before the Frost: A Linda Wallander Mystery

by Mankell, Henning Taking a position with the Ystad police force shortly after graduating, Linda Wallander, the daughter of veteran inspector Kurt Wallender, struggles with their contentious relationship before becoming embroiled in the case of a childhood friend, who has inexplicably disappeared.

MYS MANKELL