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Best Nordic Noir & European Crime

Department Q Copenhagen, Erast Fandorin Moscow, John Madden interwar England. Six picks from the most patient and most psychologically careful European crime fiction in print.

6 books on this list.

  1. The Keeper of Lost Causes
    The Keeper of Lost Causes

    by Jussi Adler-Olsen

    The first Department Q novel. Detective Carl Morck goes down to the basement and finds a five-year-old missing-politician case. The series begins here.

  2. A Conspiracy of Faith
    A Conspiracy of Faith

    by Jussi Adler-Olsen

    The third Department Q novel. Carl Morck investigates a message in a bottle written in blood. The best book in a great series.

  3. The Purity of Vengeance
    The Purity of Vengeance

    by Jussi Adler-Olsen

    The fourth Department Q novel. The Danish eugenics program at Sprogo, four decades on. Adler-Olsen at his most morally serious.

  4. The Winter Queen
    The Winter Queen

    by Boris Akunin

    The first Erast Fandorin novel. A young clerk in 1876 Moscow investigates an apparent suicide and falls down a labyrinth.

  5. River Of Darkness
    River Of Darkness

    by Rennie Airth

    The first John Madden mystery. Post-WWI English countryside, a returning detective, and a serial killer whose methods come straight from the trenches.

  6. Flash Point
    Flash Point

    by Paul Adam

    Flash Point by Paul Adam 2006 review. A Glasgow journalist investigates the death of a young African violinist competing in the Tchaikovsky Competition and stumbles into a missing-instrument scandal.

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