The 2018 Icepick Award for ‘Best Translated Crime Novel’ has been awarded to Jo Nesbø’s The Son and Jo’s Icelandic translator Bjarni Gunnarsson. The Icepick is an annual Icelandic award given to a translated crime novel and its translator by the Iceland Noir Festival, the Icelandic Crime Writers’ Association, and the Icelandic Association of Translators and Interpreters. This is the fifth time the Icepick is awarded, and the second time Bjarni Gunnarsson and Jo Nesbø receive it together.

Adlibris, Sweden’s biggest online retailer of books, has announced their most sold titles of 2018 thus far. The hardcover list is topped by Lars Kepler’s Lazarus at No. 1, followed by Leif GW Persson’s Master Detective Willy: the Story of My Career at No. 2, and Jonas Gardell’s In Memory of an Unconditional Love at No. 4.

Niklas Natt och Dag’s The Wolf and the Watchman meanwhile claims No. 3 on the paperback list, which includes both fiction and nonfiction titles. Last out is the audiobook list, which also sees Kepler coming in at No. 1 with Lazarus, whilst Natt och Dag’s The Wolf and the Watchman is No. 4, and GW Persson’s Master Detective Willy: the Story of My Career is No. 5.

Stina Jackson is the winner of the 2018 Swedish Academy of Crime Writers’ Award for ‘Best Swedish Crime Novel’. Her powerful and evocative debut novel The Silver Road is lauded by the Academy’s jury, who gives the following motivation:

“Darkly and hypnotically [written] about marginalized existences in an atmospheric Norrland.”

Stina Jackson is the first author in the award’s 36-year history to receive it for a first novel.

Sofia Lundberg’s debut novel The Red Address Book has been shortlisted for the Suomalainen kirjakauppa Book of the Year Award 2018. Suomalainen kirjakauppa is the biggest bookseller chain in Finland. The winning author and title will be chosen by a jury consisting of Suomalainen kirjakauppa’s employees. The winning author will be announced on November 23rd.

Tom Malmquist’s In Every Moment We Are Still Alive and Jo Nesbø’s Macbeth have been chosen as two of 2018’s most notable titles by The New York Times.

The prominent American newspaper calls Malmquist’s In Every Moment We Are Still Alive, “[A] searing autobiographical novel depict[ing] a father struggling to cope with the tragic loss of his partner just as their daughter is born.”

Nesbø’s Macbeth receives the accolade: “The Norwegian crime writer emphasizes the noir aspects of Shakespeare’s tragedy by turning it into a fast-paced thriller about murder and corruption in 1970s Glasgow. The result has a sharp social edge as well as a timely political resonance.”

Fredrik Backman’s Beartown is longlisted for the International DUBLIN Literary Award 2019.

Nominations are made by libraries in capital and major cities throughout the world, making the award unique in its coverage of international fiction. A panel of distinguished international judges then narrow down the list to a shortlist of approximately 10 titles, announced on April 4. The final winner will be presented on June 12.

Lars Lundström is one of Scandinavia’s most acclaimed and established screenwriters. His TV series have been praised all over the world.

Lundström is the creator and writer of the incredibly successful sci-fi drama Real Humans. The series, set in a parallel, modern-day Sweden, was released in 2012 and was quickly sold to more than 50 countries. In 2015, a remake of the series aired on Channel 4 in the UK and is now in its third season. Lundström is executive producer for the applauded British adaptation, retitled Humans.

Lundström is presently working on an English language crime drama series about a celebrity chef, called Julius’ Kitchen, and on the Danish-Belgian sci-fi project Hope, about the colonization of the planet Mars.