From Elly Griffiths’ time-travel series to occult expert Per Faxneld’s debut novel, there’s plenty of thrilling reading on the horizon this spring, notes Lotta Olsson.
It’s always a gamble when you pick up a new book. You never quite know what you’re going to gain, even if it’s by an author you’ve enjoyed before. It doesn’t necessarily have to be good. It’s often said the second book is the hardest for an author, but it’s not always easy for us readers either.
Björndråparen, Johanna Holmström’s follow-up to Vargens unge (2024), will be released in April, and in March, Inger Scharis will publish Dödsmässa, the sequel to 2025’s Åtel. Already in February, readers can look forward to Dödlig tid, the second installment in Elly Griffiths’ time-travel series, which initially sounded unusual but surprisingly proved to be quite enjoyable in De fastfrusna (2025). It’s a bit nerve-wracking. What if it was just the initial idea that worked? But still, you have to see what happens.
Other releases are more reliable bets, like Anna Jansson’s twenty-seventh (!) Maria Wern detective novel, coming in February. Minnet av en mardröm is set in a sleep clinic, which sounds promising. Sleepless victims, perhaps? Norwegian author Anne Holt is taking a different approach, announcing that Diamanter och rost, due in April, will be the final book in the Hanne Wilhelmsen police series. A shame, as the previous installment, Tolv otämjda hästar (2024), was one of the best in the series.
Where did her best friend move?
A welcome return to the mystery genre is Ingrid Hedström, the former Europe correspondent, who has written a number of worthwhile detective novels. It’s been eight years since her last, but in April comes Vännen från Berlin, where Swedish Kerstin tries to find out more about what happened when she ended up in one of Stasi’s prisons in Berlin as a young woman. Who betrayed her? Where did her best friend go?
Many of the major names are releasing new books, but the most exciting are, of course, the newcomers. I’ll be keeping an eye out for British author Ross Montgomery’s historical mystery Mordet vid World’s End (April) and Canadian Marcus Kliewer’s vaguely unsettling Vi brukade bo här (March). Occultism expert Per Faxneld, a professor of religious studies, is making his novel debut with Tre varv motsols. More horror than mystery, probably. But it’s still the suspense you’re after.
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