The restaurant The Hills stands at the center of Matias Faldbakken’s new novel, a story of waiters and regulars, chandeliers and cloakroom attendants, mezzanines and storage cellars, bar managers and in-house pianists. It’s a continental interior that greets the visitor as they enter the premises, a downtrodden mosaic of concentric circles on the floor and walls covered in portraits, drawings, paintings and stamps. The one who guides the reader through this landscape is a waiter at the establishment, a veteran of thirteen years. With utter discretion and a complete knowledge of all that goes on in his domain, he is the eyes and ears of the novel.

The ideas and ambience of old Europe are carefully guarded at the run-down restaurant. A well-established order wherein everything has its place rules, and little to nothing of the outside world intrudes. Until the threat of unrest and change comes anyway, in the innocuous form of a young woman quietly taking a seat among the regulars.

The Hills is an unexpected, smart and entertaining novel about collapsing structures and a world caught somewhere between diligence and decay. Matias Faldbakken possesses a rare talent for observation and an uncompromising eye for detail and humor as he pushes the performances of the novel to the point of absurdity, and does so in a manner that evokes a sense of unease as well as gravity.

It’s that time of the year. For the twenty-fourth time, William Wisting gets out the papers from when Katharina Haugen disappeared. The case was never solved, and every year since Wisting has called on Katharina’s husband, Martin Haugen. The steady contact between the police inspector and the bereaved husband has over the years developed into a friendship. But this year, Haugen’s house stands empty and dark when Wisting arrives. On the anniversary of his wife’s disappearance, Martin Haugen has gone missing.

The same day, Kripos investigator Adrian Stiller comes to see Wisting. A young cold case investigator for the National Criminal Investigation Service (Kripos), Stiller has uncovered a connection between Katharina’s disappearance and the missing person case he’s working on. The two must join efforts, but the collaboration with the complex Stiller will be a challenge for the experienced Wisting. The two driven investigators must all the same find a starting point they can agree on, and use their combined capabilities to solve the case.

The Katharina Code is the first installment in Jørn Lier Horst’s compelling new crime fiction series, the Cold Case Quartet.

Kristina Ohlsson’s Buried Lies celebrates its 20th consecutive week on Der Spiegel’s bestseller list for paperbacks in Germany, where it comes in at No. 5.

It’s so easy to get people to hate one another, you wonder why we do anything but.

Us Against You tells the story of the months after the terrible events that shook Beartown last spring. Best friends Maya and Ana spend the summer on a hidden island, trying to leave the world behind, but nothing goes as they hope. Beartown and Hed’s rivalry grows into a furious struggle for money, power and survival that explodes as their hockey teams meet. When a player’s most closely guarded secret is revealed, a whole community is forced to show what it really wants to stand for.

They will say that the violence came to Beartown that year, but it will be a lie. The violence was already there.

Fredrik Backman’s Us Against You, the stand-alone sequel to Beartown, is a powerful depiction of the poignant and striking relationships of a small town. It’s a story about loyalty, friendship, and a love that challenges everything.