With many apologies but due to unforeseen circumstances the winner of the Petrona Award 2025 will now be announced on 23 October 2025, rather than 16 October 2025.
Euro Crime
Reviews and News about British, European and Translated crime fiction, tv and film.
Tuesday, October 14, 2025
Sunday, October 05, 2025
Black History Month (UK)
It's Black History Month here in the UK and these are some titles published in the UK in 2025 by writers of colour. I would love to extend this list so do please put any additional authors/titles in the comments.
Kia Abdullah - What Happens in the Dark
Tariq Ashkanani - The Midnight King
Nina Bhadreshwar - The Day of the Roaring
A A Chaudhuri - The School Gates
A A Dhand - The Chemist
Renita D’Silva - Two Perfect Couples
Vaseem Khan - The Girl In Cell A
Vaseem Khan - Quantum of Menace
Remi Kone - Innocent Guilt
Dorothy Koomson - Beach Hut 512 (audio/ebook only)
Dorothy Koomson - Give Him to Me
Rupa Mahadevan - Nine Dolls
Dreda Say Mitchell - Gone (with Ryan Carter)
Dreda Say Mitchell - Love and Hate
Abir Mukherjee - The Burning Grounds
Kingsley Pearson - Flat 401
Mel Pennant - A Murder for Miss Hortense
Paula Sutton - The Body in the Kitchen Garden
Friday, September 26, 2025
Blog Tour - A Lethal Legacy by Guðrún Guðlaugsdóttir tr. Quentin Bates
Welcome to the latest stop on the blog tour for A Lethal Legacy by Guðrún Guðlaugsdóttir translated by Quentin Bates. A Lethal Legacy was published by Corylus Books on 20 September 2025 as both an ebook and in paperback.
A Lethal Legacy is the first book from Icelandic author Guðrún Guðlaugsdóttir to have been translated into English and I am very pleased today to be able to share the teaser extract below.
Blurb:
Nothing has changed at Bjargarlækur for as long as anyone can remember – so are moves to bring change to this remote farm in the Icelandic countryside a motive for murder?
Three elderly siblings have lived more or less peacefully in this isolated place their whole lives, until Brynjólfur is found dead in his own bed. Called on to help out at the farm, freelance journalist Alma is far from certain that the old man died a natural death. Determined establish the facts of the matter, she finds herself caught up in a vicious family feud.
Sisters Klara and Thórdís are unable to agree on the future of the farm, just as others with an interest in the place circle hungrily around them. Echoes of missed opportunities, lost love and age-old crimes surface as a reckoning takes a bitter toll on those left behind – and Alma struggles to get to the truth.
Extract
The sinister side to this was that from whatever angle you were to look at this, Brynjólfur could hardly have taken his own life. It was far more likely that someone else had routed carbon monoxide into his room. Who could have done it, and why? And how?
She left the room. The house was quiet. At this moment she would have given anything to have had Sveinbjörg there. Instead, she would have to cope with all this on her own, maybe even accept that she could be in danger herself.
Her thoughts went to the incident on the stairs. Perhaps it wasn’t her imagination that she had been pushed to fall down the stairs? Who could have done that? It couldn’t have been Klara, who was still seated in the chair when she went back to her room. Could she have got to her feet, despite her condition, and followed her? Was she maybe not as ill as she made out?
Thórdís was a more likely perpetrator. The floors in the attic didn’t creak, only the stairs. Or could someone have been in Thórdís’s room, and made their way out unseen? But then wouldn’t she have heard the stairs creak? She recalled that the stairs hadn’t creaked as loudly when she went down after speaking to Klara. She'd assumed that this was due to the damp. Maybe someone had managed to sneak downstairs? Or was Bjargarlækur haunted after all?
Then there was the other aspect of this. Why would someone at the farm or in the district wish to do her harm? At that point she had no inkling that Brynjólfur could have been murdered. Had she blurted out something relevant? Or had she said anything that could turn out badly for someone? What had she been told? That Thórdís dyed her hair and was Rósa’s friend. That Rósa was determined to get the farm. That Thorbjörn could be brewing moonshine in the workshop. None of this could conceivably be a motive for murder.
Alma recalled Gunnhildur mentioning having heard the sound of an engine from the workshop when she woke during the night. Had Brynjólfur’s Volvo been pushed out and another vehicle driven into the workshop during the night? If so, what car? Rósa’s car, or Thorbjörn’s? Or Jón’s? Birgir’s car had been seen down by the road, so could that have been driven into the workshop? And hadn’t Brynjólfur’s car always been kept in the workshop? Gunnhildur was supposed to be the one holding the key, but Alma had found the key locked away in Brynjólfur’s room. Did someone else have a key to the Volvo, had started it up and channelled the exhaust up to Brynjólfur’s room? Was it a possibility that Brynjólfur hadn’t taken a sleeping pill, but had instead gone down to the workshop and started the car – and then gone upstairs to die? That was a very distant possibility. But then someone would have had to have hidden any traces the following morning. No, she decided. That last possibility was too far-fetched. He had taken his medication to help him sleep and Gunnhildur had watched him swallow his pill. Or what?
The footprints in the basement and the length of green hose came suddenly to mind. Did this have something to do with Thorbjörn’s moonshining, or had it been used for another purpose? Was that piece of hose anything to do with Thorbjörn?
That left the big question. Was there a murderer on the loose at Bjargarlækur?
Guðrún Guðlaugsdóttir trained in drama, and after having been on the stage she became a producer and later a reporter for Icelandic state broadcaster RÚV. She subsequently had a 25-year career as a journalist for daily newspaper Morgunblaðið, making a name for herself for the quality of her interviews with people from all walks of life.
Her literary output has been prodigious, having written biographies, books of interviews, collections of short stories and a book of verse, as well as the enduringly popular series of novels featuring the exploits of journalist Alma Jónsdóttir.
Guðrún lives in Kópavogur. She has no plans to retire, and is still writing when most people of her age are taking it easy.
Thursday, September 18, 2025
The Petrona Award 2025 - Shortlist
Outstanding crime fiction from Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden shortlisted for the 2025 Petrona Award
Samuel Bjørk - Dead Island tr. Charlotte Barslund (Norway, Bantam)Pascal Engman - The Widows tr. Neil Smith (Sweden, Legend Press)Malin Persson Giolito - Deliver Me tr. Rachel Willson-Broyles (Sweden, Simon & Schuster)Óskar Guðmundsson - The Dancer tr. Quentin Bates (Iceland, Corylus Books)Aslak Nore - The Sea Cemetery tr. Deborah Dawkin (Norway, MacLehose Press)Satu Rämö - The Clues in the Fjord tr. Kristian London (Finland, Zaffre)Gunnar Staalesen - Pursued by Death tr. Don Bartlett (Norway, Orenda Books)
Thursday, August 14, 2025
The Petrona Award 2025 - Longlist
From the press release which was embargoed until 8.00am today:
Samuel Bjørk - Dead Island tr. Charlotte Barslund (Norway, Bantam)Stella Blómkvist - Murder Under the Midnight Sun tr. Quentin Bates (Iceland, Corylus Books)Pascal Engman - The Widows tr. Neil Smith (Sweden, Legend Press)Malin Persson Giolito - Deliver Me tr. Rachel Willson-Broyles (Sweden, Simon & Schuster)Óskar Guðmundsson - The Dancer tr. Quentin Bates (Iceland, Corylus Books)Jørn Lier Horst and Thomas Enger - Victim tr. Megan E Turney (Norway, Orenda Books)Jo Nesbo - Blood Ties tr. Robert Ferguson (Norway, Harvill Secker)Aslak Nore - The Sea Cemetery tr. Deborah Dawkin (Norway, MacLehose Press)Sólveig Pálsdóttir - Shrouded tr. Quentin Bates (Iceland, Corylus Books)Satu Rämö - The Clues in the Fjord tr. Kristian London (Finland, Zaffre)Max Seeck - Ghost Island tr. Kristian London (Finland, Mountain Leopard Press)Gunnar Staalesen - Pursued by Death tr. Don Bartlett (Norway, Orenda Books)
Monday, July 28, 2025
Award News: Petrona Award Entries 2025
The rules for eligibility are:
- The submission must be in translation and published in English in the UK during the preceding calendar year ie 1 January – 31 December 2024.
- The author of the submission must either be born in Scandinavia* or the submission must be set in Scandinavia*.
- The submission must have been published in its original language after 1999.
*in this instance taken to be Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden.
More details about the award and the history behind it can be found on the Petrona Award website. The winner of the 2024 Award was Dead Men Dancing by Jógvan Isaksen translated from Faroese by Marita Thomsen and published by Norvik Press.
The award is sponsored by David Hicks.
Entries
[15 titles are by Female authors and 14 by Male plus 1 team of Female and Male authors and 1 team of 2 Male authors. There are 21 translators (13 Female (18 titles), 8 Male (13 titles)) and 6 countries are represented (9 Norway, 8 Sweden, 7 Iceland, 4 Finland, 2 Denmark, and 1 Switzerland).]
Jussi Adler-Olsen - Locked In tr. Caroline Waight (M, Denmark, Quercus)
Alex Ahndoril - I Will Find The Key tr. Alice Menzies (M&F, Sweden, Zaffre)
Tove Alsterdal - Deep Harbour tr. Alice Menzies (F, Sweden, Faber & Faber)
Samuel Bjork - Dead Island tr. Charlotte Barslund (M, Norway, Bantam)
Stella Blómkvist - Murder Under the Midnight Sun tr. Quentin Bates (F, Iceland, Corylus Books)
Grethe Bøe - Mayday tr. Charlotte Barslund (F, Norway, Mountain Leopard Press)
Anki Edvinsson - The Mermaid tr. Paul Norlen (F, Sweden, Thomas & Mercer)
Sigge Eklund - The Group tr. Rachel Willson-Broyles (M, Sweden, Bonnier/Ithaka Press)
Pascal Engman - The Widows tr. Neil Smith (M, Sweden, Legend Press)
Helene Flood - The Widow tr. Alison McCullough (F, Norway, MacLehose Press)
Malin Persson Giolito - Deliver Me tr. Rachel Willson-Broyles (F, Sweden, Simon & Schuster)
Oskar Gudmundsson - The Dancer tr. Quentin Bates (M, Iceland, Corylus Books)
Anne Mette Hancock - Ruthless tr. Tara Chace (F, Denmark, Swift Press)
Jorn Lier Horst - The Traitor tr. Anne Bruce (M, Norway, Michael Joseph)
Jorn Lier Horst & Thomas Enger - Victim tr. Megan E Turney (M&M, Norway, Orenda Books)
Ragnar Jonasson - Death at the Sanatorium tr. Victoria Cribb (M, Iceland, Michael Joseph)
Martta Kaukonen - Follow the Butterfly tr. David Hackston (F, Finland, Pushkin Vertigo)
Camilla Lackberg - The Cuckoo tr. Ian Giles (F, Sweden, HarperCollins)
David Lagercrantz - Fatal Gambit tr. Ian Giles (M, Sweden, MacLehose Press)
Aslak Nore - The Sea Cemetery tr. Deborah Dawkin (M, Norway, MacLehose Press)
Agnes Ravatn - The Guests tr. Rosie Hedger (F, Norway, Orenda Books)
Max Seeck - Ghost Island tr. Kristian London (M, Finland, Mountain Leopard Press)
Lilja Sigurdardottir - Dark as Night tr. Lorenza Garcia (F, Iceland, Orenda Books)
Yrsa Sigurdardottir - Can't Run, Can't Hide tr. Victoria Cribb (F, Iceland, Hodder & Stoughton)
Gunnar Staalesen - Pursued by Death tr. Don Bartlett (M, Norway, Orenda Books)
Eva Björg Ægisdóttir - Boys Who Hurt tr. Victoria Cribb (F, Iceland, Orenda Books)
Book covers courtesy of Goodreads: