The Petrona Award’s jury has just presented its shortlist for the 2021 Petrona Award for ‘Best Scandinavian Crime Novel of the Year.’ The list of six nominees include Anne Holt with A Necessary Death, Jørn Lier Horst & Thomas Enger with Death Deserved, and Yrsa Sigurdardóttir with Gallows Rock.

The Judges have the following to say about each title:

“A pacy, absorbing thriller with a gutsy, complex main character.” – on Anne Holt’s A Necessary Death.

“The novel expertly fuses the writers’ individual styles, while showcasing their joint talent for writing credible and engaging characters, and creating a fast-paced, exciting plot.” – on Jørn Lier Horst & Thomas Enger’s Death Deserved.

“[The protagonists’] relationship provides readers with some lighter moments and occasional black humour, along with a frisson of mutual attraction. The novel’s intricate plot focuses on skewed morals and revenge.” – on Yrsa Sigurdardóttir’s Gallows Rock.

The winning title will be announced on Thursday 4 November, 2021.

A pandemic has swept the world. Hanne Wilhelmsen, long since retired from the police force, has already lived in self-imposed exile in her apartment for years. As Norway is shut down, she finally has the chance to reclaim her empty city.

At the same time, police officer Henrik Holme is struggling with a murder case that no one seems to care too much about. A woman has been found naked in the trunk of a car. The body is intact, apart from the face which has been beaten beyond recognition. No one has reported her missing. No one knows who she is. Holme must turn to his old mentor Hanne Wilhelmsen for help.

At the biggest publishing house in Norway, the young editor Ebba Braut is only four days into her new job when the pandemic hits with full force. From her cramped home office, she is assigned the task to hunt down a very valuable lost manuscript by one of the publisher’s best-selling authors. She too is forced to call on Hanne Wilhelmsen, who recently submitted her first crime novel without being especially interested in being edited.

The Eleventh Manuscript is a story about family secrets and deceit, about identity theft and fraud, about authors and the publishing industry, and about how “realistic fiction” can be life-threatening. Literally.

Lars Kepler is the winner of the 2021 Crime Author of the Year award, bestowed by BookBeat and the Crimetime Festival. The award is based on statistics from the three latest audiobooks by Swedish crime authors during the last 12 months and the winner was announced this weekend during an award ceremony at the Gothenburg Book Fair.

“The authorship Lars Kepler is a phenomenon in itself and is one of Sweden’s most popular through time, and data from hundreds of thousands of listeners gives us the answers as to why. Not only is their latest novel, The Mirror Man, the most listened to book of 2020 on BookBeat, our overall data shows us that users love and cannot stop listening to any of their three latest novels. Thus they are, amongst incredibly strong competition, worthy winners of the ‘Crime Author of the Year,’” says Anna Riklund, Head of Content at BookBeat.

Alexandra and Alexander Ahndoril say:
“We love that storytelling has returned to our country through audio books. We feel that our narrators Gunilla Leining and Jonas Malmsjö have a magical ability to highlight the dark and suggestive in our books. We are very happy and proud of this award, and deeply grateful that we have such fantastic listeners.”

Peter Birro (b. 1966) is one of Scandinavia’s most admired and prolific screenwriters. The three-time Prix Italia-winner’s groundbreaking TV-series Hammarkullen, Det nya landet, and How Soon Is Now?! are sweeping visions of Swedish society, marginalized people, political dramas and deeply human, emotional stories.

For cinema Birro has written the hugely successful biopic Monica Z about the internationally acclaimed jazz singer Monica Zetterlund, one of Sweden’s most talented and tragic artists. Monica Z became the biggest commercial success of 2013 in Swedish theaters and went on to be nominated for several awards, including a ‘Grand Prix des Amériques’ at the Montréal World Film Festival and no less than 11 Guldbagge Awards, of which it won four.

Birro’s most recent feature title is an adaptation of the nonfiction title 438 Days. The dramatic story of the kidnapping of two Swedish journalists in 2011 in Ethiopia premiered in 2019 and was promptly nominated for six Guldbagge Awards.

Welcome to The Ghost Detectives, Misty Valley’s own ER for ghostly matters. At your service are Elsa and Carl, who know most things about ghosts. This time around, Frans Fransson desperately needs their help. His apartment is haunted and he can’t sleep at night due to all the racket the ghost is making! Someone keeps smashing the china in the kitchen, turning the lights on and off and dragging books out of the book case. And sometimes a shadow appears in the middle of the floor, even though there’s no one there! How is it all connected? As always, the key is to understand what the ghost is trying to communicate. So who is this ghastly shadow and what does it want?

The Ghost Detectives and the Case of the Ghastly Shadow is the first stand-alone installment in Kristina Ohlsson’s spine-tingling, humorous and clever new series for the younger readers. Moa Wallin is the illustrator behind the vibrant and atmospheric images.

The Truth Will Out 2 premiered this weekend on Viaplay and promptly received rave reviews in the press, which laud the second season as even better than the first. The crime drama series is based on an original idea by the award-winning author and criminologist Leif GW Persson, and is written and created by Aron Levander and Hans Jörnlind.

“The Truth Will Out 2 gives us this year’s best Swedish TV season so far. /…/ Robert Gustafsson continues to deliver on the highest of levels, in what is without a doubt one of his career’s best and most gripping roles. The Truth Will Out season two raises the stakes also for its other characters, in what is both an impressive and cathartic manner. /…/ To conclude: When all the actors’ impressive performances are paired with a (from beginning to end) well-written script […] The Truth Will Out 2 succeeds in standing out from the crowd in the otherwise so crowded crime genre. There is no doubt that Peter Wendel’s story is time well spent before the TV.”
★★★★
Filmtopp, Sweden

“Freed of excessive motions, [The Truth Will Out 2] stands out from the crowd thanks to how different it feels; angsty, subdued, controlled, believable. A big part of the reason why the series works as well as it does is Robert Gustafsson, who is once more phenomenal in his role as the cold case group’s sorrowful, head-strong and at times easily distracted leader, Peter Wendel. /…/ Also Ia Langhammer’s for the genre rather odd character, Barbro Svensson, is an important puzzle piece. /…/ The five episodes leave you hungry for more. Here’s hoping there will be.”
★★★★
Aftonbladet, Sweden

“The Truth Will Out 2 is even better than its first season.”
★★★★
Expressen, Sweden

“Horrific scenes are woven together with both suspense and humor in a genius way. Robert Gustafsson performs his life’s best role as the distracted and resigned workaholic [Peter Wendel]. /…/ The television series keeps the standard high and is hands down one of the best contemporary Swedish crime dramas there is.”
Cinetaste, Sweden