Translated Crime Books to Discover
The amount of crime fiction available to readers is enormous and what makes it even better the sheer number of incredible translated crime fiction. Translated crime books give a fascinating insight into the similarities and differences of crime fiction from across the world. This is our list of 5 crime books in translation we think you should check out.
A CURSED PLACE. A COLD CASE. A KILLER WHO LEFT NO TRACE.
The huge International bestseller.
Gripping, unputdownable and packed with twists, The Mountain is a thriller that you will never forget.
"Can be compared (with no fear of hyperbole) to Stephen King and Jo Nesbø" - Massimo Vincenz, La Repubblica.
Jeremiah Salinger blames himself. The crash was his fault. He was the only survivor. Now the depression and the nightmares are closing in. Only his daughter Clara can put a smile on his face.
But when he takes Clara to the Bletterbach - a canyon in the Dolomites rich in fossil remains - he overhears by chance a conversation that gives his life renewed focus. In 1985 three students were murdered there, their bodies savaged, limbs severed and strewn by a killer who was never found.
Salinger, a New Yorker, is far from home, and these Italian mountains, where his wife was born, harbour a close-knit, tight-lipped community whose mistrust of outsiders can turn ugly. All the same, solving this mystery might be the only thing that can keep him sane.
Translated from the Italian by Howard Curtis
THE NOVELIST KILLS BY THE BOOK
For Commandant Camille Verhœven life is beautiful. He is happily married and soon to become a father.
HE'S ALWAYS ONE CHAPTER AHEAD
But his blissful existence is punctured by a murder of unprecedented savagery. When his team discovers that the killer has form - and each murder is a homage to a classic crime novel - the Parisian press are quick to coin a nickname . . . The Novelist.
HE HATES HAPPY ENDINGS
With the public eye fixed on both hunter and hunted, the case develops into a personal duel, each hell-bent on outsmarting the other. There can only be one winner. The one who has the least to lose.
** NOW SHORTLISTED FOR THE CWA INTERNATIONAL DAGGER**
"Gripping" Tatler
The first in a thrilling new crime series set in Germany - the Black Forest Investigations
Louise Boni, maverick chief inspector with the Black Forest crime squad, is struggling with her demons. Divorced at forty-two, she is haunted by the shadows of the past.
Dreading yet another a dreary winter weekend alone, she receives a call from the departmental chief which signals the strangest assignment of her career - to trail a Japanese monk wandering through the snowy wasteland to the east of Freiburg, dressed only in sandals and a cowl. She sets off reluctantly, and by the time she catches up with him, she discovers that he is injured, and fearfully fleeing some unknown evil. When her own team comes under fire, the investigation takes on a terrifying dimension, uncovering a hideous ring of child traffickers. The repercussions of their crimes will change the course of her own life.
Oliver Bottini is a fresh and exciting voice in the world of crime fiction in translation; the Rhine borderlands of the Black Forest are a perfect setting for his beautifully crafted mysteries.
Translated from the German by Jamie Bulloch
"Rebecka Martinsson: the new Scandi-noir heroine to rival Saga Noren and Sarah Lund" iNews
"Asa Larsson is as deft at writing heart-stopping scenes as she is at getting inside the heads of characters" Washington Post
TWO WOMEN FOLLOW A KILLER'S TRAIL INTO THE HEART OF DARKNESS
The frozen body of a woman is found in a fishing ark on the ice near Torneträsk in northern Sweden. She has been brutally tortured, but the killing blow was clumsy, almost amateur.
The body is quickly identified, raising hopes of an open-and-shut solution. But when a six-month-old suicide is disinterred, Rebecka Martinsson and Anna-Maria Mella find themselves investigating shocking corruption at the heart of one of Sweden's most successful mining companies. One that has powerful enemies of its own...
The novels that inspired the major TV series, Rebecka Martinsson: Arctic Murders
Translated from Swedish by Laurie Thompson
*The Missing File has now been adapted for television in a new series called The Calling out in November 2022*
A sixteen-year-old boy is missing in a Tel Aviv suburb. His mother is worried. Inspector Avraham Avraham is not. It is unheard of for children to vanish in this city. But the boy has disappeared without trace. The parents are wretched, the neighbourhood suspicious; the boy's tutor harbours a secret. Avraham's only answer is so unthinkable, it will take all his courage to face.
