The Petrona Award 2019 - Winner

Announcing the winner for:

The 2019 Petrona Award for the Best Scandinavian Crime Novel of the Year

On 11 May 2019, at the Gala Dinner at CrimeFest, Bristol, Petrona Award judges Kat Hall and Sarah Ward announced the winner of the 2019 Petrona Award for the Best Scandinavian Crime Novel of the Year.

The winner is THE KATHARINA CODE by Jørn Lier Horst, translated from the Norwegian by Anne Bruce and published by Michael Joseph.

As well as the trophy, Jørn Lier Horst receives a pass to and a guaranteed panel at next year's CrimeFest.

Jørn Lier Horst and Anne Bruce will also receive a cash prize.

The judges' statement on THE KATHARINA CODE:

THE KATHARINA CODE is a twenty-year-old mystery and failure of justice that haunts its investigator. From the code’s intriguing introduction in the novel’s opening pages to the duel of wits at its end, Jørn Lier Horst has crafted an outstanding and thrilling police procedural. The judges were particularly impressed with how the author takes established tropes – the ‘cold case’, the longstanding suspect, the dogged nature of policework – and combines them in ways that are innovative and fresh. THE KATHARINA CODE is the seventh novel in Horst’s ‘William Wisting’ series to be superbly translated by Anne Bruce from Norwegian into English, and a highly worthy winner of the 2019 Petrona Award.

This is the second time that Jørn Lier Horst has received the Petrona Award: he first won in 2016 with THE CAVEMAN, translated by Anne Bruce and published by Sandstone Press. Both of the winning novels are from Horst's excellent 'Wisting' series.


The Petrona team would like to thank our sponsor, David Hicks, for his generous support of the 2019 Petrona Award.

Watch the presentation (recorded via Facebook):



Jørn Lier Horst with his second Petrona Award trophy: