New Releases - August 2024

I'm still so behind but I feel I've picked up more of August's titles than I did for July. As ever, do let me know the ones I've missed! 

Here's a snapshot of what I think was published for the first time in August 2024 (and is usually a UK date but occasionally will be a US or Australian date). 92 titles this month (see above).

Please note that, unless specifically mentioned, when a book has differing print and ebook release date, I use the print release date. Translators' names are included where known.

Further to my post about writers of colour and the Theakston Crime Novel of the Year, I have identified the writers of colour (that I know of) with a *** (NB. None again this month).

Abbott, Rachel - The Last Time I Saw Him #4 Stephanie King
Alexander, Magda - A Murder in Paris #10 Kitty Worthington
Anderson, Lin - Ice Cold in Cannes (ebook only) #3 Patrick de Courvoisier, Cannes, France
Anderson, Lin - Whispers of the Dead #19 Rhona MacLeod, forensic scientist, Glasgow
Atkinson, Kate - Death at the Sign of the Rook #6 Jackson Brodie, Retired PI
Baker, J A - Hush Little Baby
Barnsley, Rhiannon - The Clique
Barton, Fiona - Talking to Strangers #2 Elise King
Bennett, Gwyn - Burning Lies #9 Dr Harrison Lane
Bowen, Rhys - The Rose Arbor
Burke-Patel, Bonnie - I Died at Fallow Hall
Burnside, Heather - Vengeance
Bussell, Suzy - Haunted High Tea and Homicide #1 The Jane Austen Tearoom Mysteries, Sidmouth
Butler, D S - Leave No Trace #9 DS Karen Hart, Lincolnshire
Cassidy, Amanda - The Perfect Place
Cavanagh, Steve - Witness 8 #8 Eddie Flynn, USA
Chase, Clare - The Antique Store Detective #1 Bella Winter
Child, Lee - Safe Enough - Short Stories
Cleeves, Ann - The Dark Wives #11 Inspector Vera Stanhope, East Yorkshire
Cole, M G - Siren's Call #8 DCI Garrick
Comley, M A - To Judge Them #14 DI Sam Cobbs
Connelly, Lucy - An Irish Bookshop Murder #1 Mercy McCarthy, Ireland
Coombs, Alex - A Knife in the Back #3 Old Forge Cafe Mystery
Cooper, Claire - The Couple on the Train
Cunningham, Jo - Death by Numbers #1 Una, Actuary, Eastbourne
Dalgliesh, J M - Homewrecker
Dent, Susie - Guilty by Definition
Dickson, Diane M - Body in the Way #8 DI Jordan Carr, Liverpool
Dixon, Helena - Murder in the Countryside #17 Miss Underhay
Donovan, Kerry J - On The Charge #13 Ryan Kaine
Downes, Anna - Red River Road
Elliot, Laura - Not Their Daughter
Elliott, Anna & Veley, Charles - The Adventure of the Time Machine #36 Sherlock and Lucy Mysteries
Ellis, Emmy - The Lion's Den #2 Detective Anna James
Ellis, Emmy - The Copy Cat #3 Detective Anna James
Ellis, Hannah - Death on the Rocks #1 Lily Larkin
Ellis, Kate - Coffin Island #28 Wesley Peterson (policeman) and Neil Watson (archaeologist), Tradmouth, Devon
Fennell, David - A Violent Heart #4 DI Grace Archer & DS Harry Quinn, London
Field, David - The Clamorous Dead #4 Bailiff Mountsorrel Tudor Mysteries
Fleet, Katherine - The Liars
Fletcher, Susan - The Night in Question
Ford, P F - Death by Caravan #12 Slater and Norman
Ford, P F - Death by Jogging #13 Slater and Norman
Giles, Stewart - The Hitchhiker #29 DS Jason Smith
Glass, Ava - The Trap #3 Alias Emma series
Goodwin, Sarah - The Island
Griffin, Martin - The Last Visitor
Hallett, Janice - The Examiner
Halsall, Rona - The Fiance
Harper, Izzie - Murder at the Summer Swim #6 The Wootton Windmill Mysteries
Harris, Robert - Precipice
Hendy, Hannah - A Gravely Troubling Discovery #5 The Dinner Lady Detectives
Higgs, Steve - Shadow of a Lie #1 DS Tony Heaton
Higgs, Steve - Old Fashioned #3 Albert Smith
Hunter, E V - A Deadly Affair #5 Hopgood Hall Murder Mysteries
Jonasson, Ragnar - Death at the Sanitorium tr. Victoria Cribb
Lagercrantz, David Fatal - Gambit tr. Ian Giles #2 Professor Hans Rekke & Micaela Vargas
Leadbeater, David - Blood Requiem
Lecky, Pam - A Pocketful of Diamonds #4 Lucy Lawrence, Victorian Era
Lloyd, Catherine - Miss Morton and the Deadly Inheritance #3 Miss Morton, Regency England
Lloyd, Chris - Banquet of Beggars #3 Detective Eddie Giral, Paris, 1940
Luther, Max - Worth Killing For #3 Alex Drayce
McEvoy, Lesley - The Invisible Dead #4 Dr Jo McCready
McLean, Rachel - Power and Treachery (ebook only) #3 McBride & Tanner
Manning, Max -A Body on the Flats #1 DI Edison Kane & DC Bailey Granger, Essex
Markin, Wes - Forgotten Bones #1 Detective Chief Inspector Frank Black, Whitby
Maslen, Andy - The Silent Wife #3 Detective Kat Ballantyne
Mead, Tom - Cabaret Macabre #3 Joseph Spector
Morris, M S - Stained with Blood #7 DCI Tom Raven
Mortimer, Bob - The Hotel Avocado #2 Gary Thorn
Mosse, Greg - Murder at the Fair #4 Maisie Cooper
Mumford, Louise - The Festival
Murphy, Martina - The Bone Fire #4 DS Lucy Golden
Neville, Stuart - Blood Like Mine
Norman, Charity - Home Truths
North, Liza - The Weekend Guests
Perry, S W - Berlin Duet
Ramsay, Caro - Out of the Dark #3 DCI Christine Caplan, Highlands
Reid, TG - Burn it All Down #7 DCI Bone
Rhodes, Tyler - Ninjas and Nightmares #9 Max's Campervan Case Files
Russell, Leigh - Deadly Will #22 DI Geraldine Steel
Salter, Michelle - A Corpse in Christmas Close #5 Iris Woodmore, 1920s
Saxon, Diane - My Mother's Lies
Schellman, Katharine - A Scandal in Mayfair #5 Lily Adler, London, 1815
Staalesen, Gunnar - Pursued by Death tr. Don Bartlett #22 Varg Veum, PI in Bergen, Norway
Sutton, Ann - The Case of the Deadly Dinner (ebook only) #1 Maggie Malone
Swann, Leonie - Agnes Sharp and the Trip of a Lifetime tr. Amy Bojang #2 Agnes Sharp
Ward, Cameron - Spiral
Williams, T A - Murder in Portofino #8 Armstrong and Oscar
Wilson, Claire - Five by Five
Wright, G D - After the Storm #1 DS Sue Willmott
Yarwood-Lovett, Sarah - A Swarm of Butterflies #6 Nell Ward

The Petrona Award 2024 - Shortlist

 

Outstanding crime fiction from the Kingdom of Denmark, Iceland, Norway and Sweden shortlisted for the 2024 Petrona Award

Six impressive crime novels from the Kingdom of Denmark, Iceland, Norway and Sweden have been shortlisted for the 2024 Petrona Award for the Best Scandinavian Crime Novel of the Year. The shortlist is announced today, Thursday 10 October and is as follows:

Anne Mette Hancock - The Collector tr. Tara F Chace (Denmark, Swift Press)

Jørn Lier Horst - Snow Fall tr. Anne Bruce (Norway, Michael Joseph)

Arnaldur Indriðason - The Girl by the Bridge tr. Philip Roughton (Iceland, Harvill Secker)

Jógvan Isaksen - Dead Men Dancing tr. Marita Thomsen (Faroe Islands (Kingdom of Denmark), Norvik Press)

Åsa Larsson - The Sins of our Fathers tr. Frank Perry (Sweden, MacLehose Press)

Yrsa Sigurðardottir - The Prey tr. Victoria Cribb (Iceland, Hodder & Stoughton)

The winning title will be announced on 14 November 2024. 

The Petrona Award is open to crime fiction in translation, either written by a Scandinavian author or set in Scandinavia, and published in the UK in the previous calendar year.

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

The judges’ comments on the shortlist:

There were 31 entries for the 2024 Petrona Award from six countries (Kingdom of Denmark, Finland, France, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden). This year’s shortlist sees both the Kingdom of Denmark and Iceland represented with two novels each and Sweden and Norway with one novel each. The judges selected the shortlist from a strong pool of candidates with the shortlisted authors including Petrona Award winners, Jørn Lier Horst and Yrsa Sigurðardottir.

As ever, we are extremely grateful to the six translators whose expertise and skill have allowed readers to access these outstanding examples of Scandinavian crime fiction, and to the publishers who continue to champion and support translated fiction. 

The judges’ comments on each of the shortlisted titles:

Anne Mette Hancock - THE COLLECTOR translated by Tara F Chace (Denmark, Swift Press)

When ten-year-old Lukas disappears from his Copenhagen school, police investigators discover that the boy had a peculiar obsession with pareidolia: a phenomenon that makes him see faces in random things. A photo on his phone, posted just hours before his disappearance, shows an old barn door that resembles a face. Journalist Heloise Kaldan thinks she recognizes the barn - but from where? When Lukas’s blood-flecked jacket is found, DNA evidence points to Thomas Strand, a former soldier suffering from severe PTSD, but then Strand turns up dead in his apartment. 

This is a complex thriller of buried secrets, that beautifully wrong-foots the reader from beginning to end.

Jørn Lier Horst - SNOW FALL, translated by Anne Bruce (Norway, Michael Joseph)

The discovery of an Australian backpacker’s body in Spain prompts a group of amateur true crime detectives into action. They are scattered online around the world, attempting to solve the mystery of her death. Astri, a young Norwegian woman whose intense pursuit takes her closer than anyone else to solving the case, prepares to reveal her findings and then goes offline. When William Wisting reluctantly gets involved in the investigation, he is faced with the unusual, unorthodox investigators of varied skills and intentions, and puzzling connections. 

A slow methodological approach gathers pace and pulls readers into a complex web of low-key international ties. As always Lier Horst delves deep into the psychology and motives of the characters, creating a slow-burning police procedural of empathy and human interest, firmly rooted in Norwegian society.   

Arnaldur Indriðason - THE GIRL BY THE BRIDGE translated by Philip Roughton (Iceland, Harvill Secker)

When a young woman known for drug smuggling goes missing, her elderly grandparents have no choice but to call friend of the family, retired detective Konrád. Still looking for his own father's murderer, Konrád agrees to investigate the case, but digging into the past reveals more than he set out to discover, and a strange connection to a little girl who drowned in the Reykjavík city pond decades ago recaptures everyone's attention.

One of Iceland’s most established authors, Indriðason skilfully interweaves different timelines along with assured characterisation, in this second book to feature Konrád.

Jógvan Isaksen - DEAD MEN DANCING translated by Marita Thomsen (Faroe Islands (Kingdom of Denmark), Norvik Press)

Similar to the story of the ancient god Prometheus, a man has been shackled to rocks and left to drown on the beach. But this time it happens on the Faroe Islands. The discovery of his body throws the local community into an unsettling chaos. As the journalist Hannis Martinsson investigates, he comes across evidence of similar deaths. He realises they are linked to the events in Klaksvik in the 1950s, and a local revolt which tore the community apart. As Martinsson digs into the past, he learns about his country’s history, and the reader has a chance to discover what makes the Faroes intriguing and spellbinding. 

This is only Isaksen’s second novel to be translated into English. The contemporary Faroese crime fiction writer places his characters in the wild, beautiful, and unforgiving environment and allows them to search for truth. Dogged and uncompromising, Martinsson is a superb creation. 

Åsa Larsson - THE SINS OF OUR FATHERS translated by Frank Perry (Sweden, MacLehose Press)

Rebecka Martinsson, disillusioned with her challenging job as a prosecutor, initially has no intention of looking into a fifty-year-old case involving the missing father of Swedish Olympic boxing champion, Börje Ström. Agreeing, however, to the dying wish of her forensic pathologist friend she begins to follow links when a body is found in a freezer at the house of a deceased alcoholic. The grim realities of life in the area years ago, and the current influx of criminals attracted by developments in Kiruna make for a tough investigation and difficult soul-searching, coupled with Rebecka’s own history in a foster family.

Larsson remains a wise, observant, social commentator and creator of a gripping, suspenseful and utterly moving series, with her eye to the past and the future, and emotive style. Delicate and  relevant humour adds hope to the fragile lives of the main characters.

Yrsa Sigurðardottir - THE PREY translated by Victoria Cribb (Iceland, Hodder & Stoughton)

Kolbeinn has been called to his old home as the new owners have uncovered some photos, and a muddied child's shoe bearing the name 'Salvor'. A name Kolbeinn doesn't recognise. Soon after, his mother's carers say that she has been asking for her daughter, Salvor.

Jóhanna is working with the search and rescue team in Höfn to find two couples from Reykjavik. Their phones' last location, the road leading up into the highlands. In a harsh winter, the journey is treacherous, and they soon find the first body.

Hjörvar works at the Stokksnes Radar Station in the highlands. He's alone when the phone connected to the gate rings: the first time it's ever done so. Above the interference he can hear a child's voice asking for her mother. 

How are these events connected?

Sigurðardottir balances these three storylines, each with her trademark creeping sense of unease, in this dark and disturbing standalone.

The judges

Jackie Farrant - creator of RAVEN CRIME READS and a bookseller/Area Commercial Support for a major book chain in the UK.

Ewa Sherman - translator and writer, and blogger at NORDIC LIGHTHOUSE.

Award administrator

Karen Meek – owner of the EURO CRIME blog and website.

Further information can be found on the Petrona Award website: http://www.petronaaward.co.uk.

On social media, please use #PetronaAward24.