Books Set In Norway That Will Chill You To The Bone

Crime reporter Henning Juul received a menacing note from Tore Pulli, a jailed extortionist convicted of a murder he says he didn’t commit, once he’s back at work after being in a fire that killed his son.

The truth has never been more important for Juul, who digs even deeper when Pulli is found dead in his prison cell. He’s convinced Pulli never would have taken his own life.

Juul strikes up a fragile partnership with Iver Gundersen, a journalist now living with his ex-wife, and uncovers an internal power struggle in the gang world. He uncovers more questions than answers and now has to find several killers who have never been more dangerous.

Doppler just lost his father. He has a pregnant wife and two daughters and also just moved to the woods, starting a lonely and purposefully boring life. Yet, he’s never been so happy.

He feels guilty about killing a female elk and leaving the calf behind then when the baby elk adopts him, he’s tempted to kill it, too, but instead, they become very good friends.

Paul was always bewitched by the Scandanavian Alps and decided to experience the icy peaks and dark fjords with just a ten and a backpack.

He stops at rustic inns, follows the paths of other travelers, navigates bad weather, and confronts the majestic mountains.

Roger Brown is a corporate headhunter and he’s the best but his career can’t support his luxurious lifestyle and his wife’s fledgling art gallery.

At a gallery opening one night, he meets Clas Greve who is the perfect candidate for a major CEO job and possibly the answer to his financial woes. He happens to own a priceless painting lost since WWII and Brown happens to dabble in art theft.

When he breaks into Greve’s apartment though, he finds more than just the painting and Greve may actually be the worst thing that’s ever happened to him.

This is the story of Siss and Unn, two friends who have only spent one evening in each other’s company. It’s such a profound evening though, that when Unn disappears, Siss’s world is shattered.

Tom Faraday is determined to finish his high-concept environmentally friendly home he’s building in Norway. It’s the same place he lost his wife, Aurelia, to suicide and he wants to honor her with their dream home.

Lexi takes a job as his nanny and falls in love his the two girls, especially Gaia. But something is off about the isolated home.

Muddy footprints appear inside, Aurelia’s diary appears in Lexi’s room, and Gaia keeps telling her about the Sad Lady. She begins to expect Aurelia didn’t kill herself and they’re all in danger of something far more sinister.

All Thorkild wants to do as a newly released prisoner and psychiatric hospital patient is to lose himself in drugged dreams of his beloved and gone forever Frei.

When Frei’s young cousin disappears off the Norwegian coast, he’s called in by the family to help find him, dead or alive, and he can’t refuse.

He’s already lost his reputation, will he lose his life now, too?

Georg’s father is no more than a shadow to him until his grandmother discovers some pages stuffed into the lining of a chair. They’re a letter written to Georg just before his father died and a story called “The Orange Girl.”

It’s no ordinary story, though, it’s a riddle from the past about an incident in his father’s youth. He was on a tram and captivated by a beautiful young woman carrying a bag of oranges when it lurched to a stop and he knocked into her, scattering the oranges. She got off and he was left with an armful of fruit. Now he wants his son to solve the puzzle of her identity.

Ove Bakkerud is ready for a quiet final weekend at his summer home before closing for the winter. However, once the tourists are gone, some less-welcome visitors show up.

His cottage is ransacked and he finds a man beaten to death next door. Police Inspector William Wisting has seen bad murders but nothing like the desperation in this latest murder.

His daughter decides to stay in one of the summer cottages, against his orders, and his unease only grows as they find several more corpses on the deserted archipelago. The whole time dead birds are dropping from the sky.

I read this one over the summer and enjoyed it quite a bit!

Sonja never showed up to the launch of her controversial autobiography in Oslo. Later that day, Emma Ramm, a celebrity blogger, pays a visit to her house only to find signs of a struggle, a bib with the number one pinned to the TV, and no sign of Sonja.

Alexander Blix is assigned to head the investigation. He joins forces with Emma to get to the bottom of the increasing signs of Sonja and clues that are carefully calculated. Together they have to find and stop this merciless killer.

Cecilia Wilborg has it all and works hard to keep it all together but one mistake from her past could ruin it all.

Annika Lucasson’s life is less perfect, living with her abusive, drug-dealing boyfriend. She’s lost everything more than once but finally has a chance to save herself, thanks to Cecilia.

Annika knows her secret and what she’s willing to do to make it disappear.

When someone forgets to pick up their little boy from the pool, Cecilia agrees to take him home and finds an abandoned and empty house. This is just the first step in unraveling her life as it collides with Annika’s.

Allis Hagtorn, a TV presenter, leaves her partner and job for voluntary exile in a remote house on an isolated fjord. Here new job as a housekeeper and gardener isn’t quite what it seems, though.

Sigurd Bagge, her 44-year-old surly employer isn’t the old man she was expecting. As they wait for his wife to return from her travels, their uneasy encounters turn into an obsessive relationship and it becomes clear atonement for past sins may not be enough.

Inspector Frank Frolich is shocked to find out he knows the woman found scalded and wrapped in plastic in a dumpster. As he learns more about her death, a coworker is facing a similar case where they find an unsettling number of coincidences. Now Frolich is forced to look into his own dark past to find the answers.

In 1985, a young folklore teacher disappeared from the village of Eidsborg and now 30 years later, student Cecile Widborg is missing. She was also studying pagan rituals associated with the 13th century Eidsborg church. Soon, a local former police officer, Knut Abrahamsen, is found drowned in the nearby river by apparent suicide.

Max Fjellanger feels compelled to leave his Florida home to attend his friend’s funeral in his native Norway even though they haven’t spoken in 30 years. He isn’t convinced Knut killed himself. It seems to be connected with the missing researcher.

Now Max is determined to find out the truth where he finds himself drawn into a dark world where ancient superstitions, religious cults, and sinister forces are still very much alive.

At eighty years old, Anna Neshove is rushed to the hospital after suffering a heart attack. Her three sons haven’t spoken in some time but after hearing of her failing health, they reluctantly reunite over the winter holidays where inheritance is questioned and bizarre and devastating truths come out.

Jon showed up at Trond’s door with an adventure in mind but once the two of them are out on “borrowed” horses joy riding, Jon falls into a strange grief. Trond learns that an incident earlier that day befell Jon marking a series of vital losses for both of them.

After the first snowfall of the year, Jonas wakes up to find his mother missing. Her new pink scarf is the only thing left behind and is now on the snowman that appeared in their yard earlier that day.

Inspector Harry Hole suspects a connection between her and a mysterious letter he received and things get even weirder when a pattern emerges over the past decade of women vanishing after the first snow of the year.

I just got this one and cannot wait to read it this winter. I know this is one of the best nordic noir books out there.

This is the story of Isak leaving his village to clear a homestead and raise a family in the Norwegian backcountry.

There isn’t much description on this one but if you’re a fan of classics and want a book set in Norway, this sounds perfect for you.

A six-year-old girl is found hanging, lifeless, from a tree in a strange doll’s clothes with a note that says “I’m traveling alone.

Holger Munch is at the helm of the reopened special homicide unit. His first move is to persuade Mia Kruger, a brilliant but haunted investigator to join him. She returns to duty and knows it’s only the beginning when she spots the number one carved into the girl’s fingernail.

Does this have anything to do with the child who was abducted and never found six years ago or the reclusive religious community in the woods?

They realize it’s personal when Munch’s own six-year-old granddaughter goes missing, too.

As disputes over her parents’ will grow bitter, Bergljot is drawn into the family she left twenty years before. They are leaving two island summer houses to her sisters and disinheriting the two eldest siblings from the most meaningful part of the estate. From the outside, it just looks like favoritism but Bergljot knows it’s a final attempt to suppress the truth of a horrible secret she’s has since childhood.

Kristin was deeply devoted to her father as a young girl but as a student in a convent, she defies her parents will for her own happiness when she meets the charming Erlend Nikulausson.

They start a life together and raise seven sons as Erlend tries to strengthen his political influence but their estrangement to the world around them tumbles them into uncertainty.

Fingers are pointer at seventeen-year-old Evan when the high school becomes a murder scene. Social media is ablaze with accusations, rumors, and threats leaving Evan the subject of an online trial while being on the dock for murder.

He pores over his memories of the moths leading up to the crime and it’s clear one villager was acting suspiciously. Secrets simmer beneath the community and he’s forced to question everything he knew.

Selma’s life as a lawyer has hit rock bottom, until Hege Chin Morell, Norway’s best female skier, approaches her to help overturn a dope charge.

With just two months until the winter Olympics, it seems like an impossible task. But after a male skier is found dead after a training accident, something more serious is at risk.

The pattern of recent crimes and ancient sins becomes undeniable as Selma races against time to find out what’s really going on.

Katharina went missing twenty-four years ago and on the anniversary of her disappearance every year Chief Inspector William Wisting visits her husband.

He re-reads the files searching for answers he’s never found. Until now. Now another woman is missing, as is Katharina’s husband.

WIsting has to find him but is he helping a good friend or playing a deadly game?

It all starts to come out when a small-time drug dealer is found murdered on the outskirts of Oslo. Then, a young Dutchman is found wandering around covered in blood but refuses to talk. Until he finds out the woman who discovered the body is Karen Borg, a lawyer who he demands to have as his defender.

A few days after that another lawyer is found shot to death with a coded message in their apartment. Hakon and Hanne begin investigating this and rumors of drug-dealing lawyers which helps put pieces together.

Now they know why the man insisted on having Karen Borg defend him. She’s the only Oslo lawyer that can’t be implicated in the crime.

A massive network of corruption is uncovered leading to the highest level of government.