Recommendations based on "The Mammoth Book of Best International Crime"

Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy is now available in a complete hardcover set.All across America, readers are talking about Stieg Larsson’s best-selling novels, set in Sweden and featuring Lisbeth Salander—“one of the most original and memorable heroines to surface in a recent thriller” (The New York Times). The trilogy isan international sensation that will grab you and keep you “reading with eyes wide open” (San Francisco Chronicle). “[It] is intricately plotted, lavishly detailed but written with a breakneck pace and verve” (The Independent, U.K.), but “be warned: the trilogy is seriously addictive.” (The Guardian, U.K.).“Believe the hype . . . It’s gripping stuff.”—People“Stieg Larsson clearly loved his brave misfit Lisbeth. And so will you.”—USA Today“Larsson has bottled lightning.”—Los Angeles TimesThe Girl with the Dragon TattooHarriet Vanger, a scion of one of Sweden’s wealthiest families disappeared without a trace more than forty years ago. All these years later, her aged uncle continues to try to discover what happened to her. He hires Mikael Blomkvist, a journalist recently sidelined by a libel conviction, to investigate. Blomkvist is aided by the pierced and tattooed computer prodigy Lisbeth Salander. Together they tap into a vein of unfathomable iniquity and astonishing corruption on their way to discovering the truth of Harriet Vanger’s fate.The Girl Who Played with FireMikael Blomkvist, now the crusading publisher of the magazine Millennium, has decided to run a story that will expose an extensive sex trafficking operation. On the eve of its publication, the two reporters responsible for the article are murdered, and the fingerprints found on the murder weapon belong to his friend Lisbeth Salander. Blomkvist, convinced of Salander’s innocence, plunges into an investigation of the murders. Meanwhile, Salander herself is drawn into a murderous game of cat and mouse, which forces her to face her dark past.The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s NestLisbeth Salander lies in critical condition, a bullet wound to her head, in the intensive care unit of a Swedish city hospital. She’s fighting for her life in more ways than one: if and when she recovers, she’ll be taken back to Stockholm to stand trial for three murders. With the help of Mikael Blomkvist, she will not only have to prove her innocence, but also identify and denounce those in authority who have allowed the vulnerable, like herself, to suffer abuse and violence. On her own, she will plot revenge—against the man who tried to kill her, and against the corrupt government institutions that very nearly destroyed her life.“Unique and fascinating . . . Like a blast of cold, fresh air.”—Chicago Tribune“Wildly suspenseful . . . Intelligent, ingeniously plotted, utterly engrossing.”—The Washington Post“A gripping, stay-up-all-night read.” —Entertainment Weekly“Dynamite.” —Variety

Jussi Adler-Olsen, author of The Absent One, is Denmark's premier crime writer. His books routinely top the bestseller lists in northern Europe, and he's won just about every Nordic crime-writing award, including the prestigious Glass Key Award-also won by Henning Mankell, Stieg Larsson, and Jo Nesbo. Now, Dutton is thrilled to introduce him to America. The Keeper of Lost Causes, the first installment of Adler- Olsen's Department Q series, features the deeply flawed chief detective Carl MØrck, who used to be a good homicide detective-one of Copenhagen's best. Then a bullet almost took his life. Two of his colleagues weren't so lucky, and Carl, who didn't draw his weapon, blames himself. So a promotion is the last thing Carl expects. But it all becomes clear when he sees his new office in the basement. Carl's been selected to run Department Q, a new special investigations division that turns out to be a department of one. With a stack of Copenhagen's coldest cases to keep him company, Carl's been put out to pasture. So he's as surprised as anyone when a case actually captures his interest. A missing politician vanished without a trace five years earlier. The world assumes she's dead. His colleagues snicker about the time he's wasting. But Carl may have the last laugh, and redeem himself in the process. Because she isn't dead . . . yet.

One of The New York Times Book Review's Ten Best Books of 2015 and a New York Times bestseller, and now the basis for the Netflix film 22 July, from acclaimed filmmaker Paul GreengrassWidely acclaimed as a masterpiece, Åsne Seierstad’s One of Us is essential reading for a time when mass killings are so grimly frequent.On July 22, 2011, Anders Behring Breivik detonated a bomb outside the Norwegian prime minister's office in central Oslo, killing eight people. He then proceeded to a youth camp on the wooded island of Utøya, where he killed sixty-nine more, most of them teenage members of the country's governing Labour Party. In One of Us, the journalist Åsne Seierstad tells the story of this terrible day and its reverberations. How did Breivik, a gifted child from an affluent neighborhood in Oslo, become Europe's most reviled terrorist? How did he accomplish an astonishing one-man murder spree? And how did a famously peaceful and prosperous country cope with the slaughter of so many of its young?As in her international bestseller The Bookseller of Kabul, Seierstad excels at the vivid portraiture of lives under stress. She delves deep into Breivik's childhood, showing how a hip-hop and graffiti aficionado became a right-wing activist, a successful entrepreneur, and then an Internet game addict and self-styled master warrior who believed he could save Europe from the threat of Islam and multiculturalism. She writes with equal intimacy about Breivik's victims, tracing their political awakenings, teenage flirtations and hopes, and ill-fated journeys to the island. By the time Seierstad reaches Utøya and relates what happened there, we know both the killer and those he will kill. In the book's final act, Seierstad describes Breivik's tumultuous public trial. As Breivik took the stand and articulated his ideas, an entire country debated whether he should be deemed insane, and asked why a devastating sequence of police errors allowed one man to do so much harm.One of Us is at once a psychological study of violent extremism, a dramatic true crime procedural, and a compassionate inquiry into how a privileged society copes with homegrown evil. Lauded in Scandinavia for its literary merit and moral poise, One of Us is the true story of one of our age's most tragic events.

A gripping literary thriller and smash bestseller that has taken Italy, France, Germany and the UK by storm.Six severed arms are discovered, arranged in a mysterious circle and buried in a clearing in the woods. Five of them appear to belong to missing girls between the ages of eight and eighteen. The sixth is yet to be identified. Worse still, the girls' bodies, alive or dead, are nowhere to be found.Lead investigators Mila Vasquez, a celebrated profiler, and Goran Gavila, an eerily prescient criminologist, dive into the case. They're confident they've got the right suspect in their sights until they discover no link between him and any of the kidnappings except the first. The evidence in the case of the second missing child points in a vastly different direction, creating more questions than it answers.Vasquez and Gavila begin to wonder if they've been brought in to take the fall in a near-hopeless case. Is it all coincidence? Or is a copycat criminal at work? Obsessed with a case that becomes more tangled and intense as they unravel the layers of evil, Gavila and Vasquez find that their lives are increasingly in each other's hands.THE WHISPERER, as sensational a bestseller in Europe as the Stieg Larsson novels, is that rare creation: a thought-provoking, intelligent thriller that is also utterly unputdownable.

Buy Val McDermid's masterful new thriller, 1989, now! 'No-one can plot or tell a story like she can. The hairs on my neck literally stood up' Daily Express 'So gripping it puts your life on hold' The Times 'You should have been a detective. If there's one thing the last year has proved, it's how good you are at finding things out. Things that are buried so deep nobody even thinks twice about them. The sort of things that turn people's lives inside out once they're exposed.' Meet Tony Hill's most twisted adversary - a killer with a shopping list of victims, a killer unmoved by youth and innocence, a killer driven by the most perverted of desires. The murder and mutilation of teenager Jennifer Maidment is horrific enough on its own. But it's not long before Tony realises it's just the start of a brutal and ruthless campaign that's targeting an apparently unconnected group of young people. Struggling with the newly awakened ghosts of his own past and desperate for distraction in his work, Tony battles to find the answers that will give him personal and professional satisfaction in his most testing investigation yet . . . A shocking, nail-biting Tony Hill and Carol Jordan thriller from the number one bestseller. Praise for Val McDermid: 'It grabs the reader by the throat and never lets go' Daily Mail 'As good a psychological thriller as it is possible to get' Sunday Express 'One of today's most accomplished crime writers' Literary Review 'McDermid remains unrivalled' Observer 'The queen of crime is still at the top of her game' Independent This is the sixth book in the bestselling Tony Hill and Carol Jordan series.

In the ninth Harry Hole novel, someone wants Harry silenced. When Harry Hole moved to Hong Kong, he thought he was escaping the traumas of his life in Oslo and his career as a detective for good. But now, the unthinkable has happened—Oleg, the boy he helped raise, has been arrested for killing a man. Harry can’t believe that Oleg is a murderer, so he returns to Oslo to hunt down the real killer.Although he’s off the police force, he still has a case to solve that will send him into the depths of the city’s drug culture, where a shockingly deadly new street drug is gaining popularity. This most personal of investigations will force Harry to confront his past and the wrenching truth about Oleg and himself.

‘I’ve fallen in love with the characters in this series’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘Her books are like magnets: one page turns into five, turns into fifty, and suddenly it’s 2 a.m.’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ He's tracking people down one by one And you're next on the list... A MAN MURDERED, LIVE ON CAMERA When a DVD is delivered in the dead of night, DCI Cara Elliott hits play on a horrifying showreel of violence... This is death, on demand. A KILLER COUNTING DOWN Avid viewers are paying for the killings, with twisted specifications. A request, an abduction, a murder. And always in a forty-eight-hour pattern. A MISSING DETECTIVE But when the killer finds out they’re being investigated, they reveal their next target. In forty-eight hours, a police officer will be the one in front of the camera. The hunters have become the hunted, and the clock is ticking... Praise for Sam Holland's thrillers ‘Smart and brooding, icepick-sharp and shadow-dark; best of all, though, it’s scary as hell. Think you’re tough? Pick up this novel and prove it’ A. J. Finn, author of The Woman in the Window ‘Really disturbing and gripping but with a trademark sexy cop at the heart to offset the serial killer gore. Lots of fun in a very nightmarish way’ Harriet Tyce, author of Blood Orange ‘Fierce, frightening, twisted and addictive.’ Chris Whitaker, author of We Begin at the End ‘Fast and furious, Sam Holland doesn’t take her foot off the pedal for a second’ Victoria Selman, author of Truly Darkly Deeply ‘If you like crime that’s dark, twisted, and keeps you up all night, Holland is the author for you’ Jack Jordan, author of Do No Harm ‘I raced through this page-turner and slept with the light on after finishing it!’ Elle Croft, author of The Guilty Wife ‘Fascinating, complex characters, whose relationships are every bit as humanly messy as the crime scenes they face’ Dominic Nolan, author of Vine Street Readers love The Countdown Killer... ‘I’ve fallen in love with the characters in this series’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘Her books are like magnets: one page turns into five, turns into fifty, and suddenly it’s 2 a.m.’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘An unputdownable read and I read most of it in 24 hours’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘Captured me from the first page and didn’t let go’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘Gripping, disturbing, and timely’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘Honestly, my favourite so far – which says a lot as I was obsessed with The Echo Man!’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘One of my most anticipated reads, and it did not disappoint!’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘A must-read for fans of gritty police procedurals and serial killer fiction’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘A compelling crime thriller with interestingly flawed characters you hope come out the other side intact’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘The pacing is electric, with tension that never lets up and twists that genuinely surprised me’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘More than just a police procedural thriller’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘The writing is immersive and addictive – I completely binged the second half in one sitting’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘This series is one of my all-time favourite thrillers, and The Countdown Killer totally lived up to the hype. Actually, scratch that—it might be my favourite one yet’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘Words cannot explain how much I loved this book’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER • Jo Nesbø’s Detective Hole is coming soon to Netflix • In this “invigorating must-read” installment (Newsweek) of the New York Times bestselling series, Inspector Harry Hole investigates a serial killer targeting Oslo’s police officers. For years, detective Harry Hole has been at the center of every major criminal investigation in Oslo. His brilliant insights and dedication to his job have saved countless lives over the years. But as the killer grows increasingly bold and the media reaction increasingly hysterical, the detective is nowhere to be found. This time, when those he loves and values most are facing terrible danger, Harry is in no position to protect anyone—least of all himself.

Shortlisted for the Theakstons Old Peculiar Crime Novel of the Year Award 2019, shortlisted for the CWA John Creasey Debut Dagger Award 2018 and the CrimeFest Last Laugh Award 2018A TELEGRAPH Book of the Year. Meet Jay.Small-time dealer.Accidental jihadist.The one man who can save us all?Javid - call him Jay - is a dope dealer living in West London. He goes to mosque on Friday, and he's just bought his pride and joy - a BMW. He lives with his mum, and life seems sweet.But his world is about to turn upside-down. Because MI5 have been watching him, and they think he's just the man they need for a delicate mission.One thing's for sure: now he's a long way East of Hounslow, Jay's life will never be the same again.With the edgy humour of Four Lions and the pulse-racing tension of Nomad, East of Hounslow is the first in a series of thrillers starring Jay Qasim.Reviewers love East of Hounslow: 'Marvellous. Totally marvellous. Hilarious. Brilliant. Grounded in reality, with some fabulous dialogue. So absorbing, you forget the rest of the world exists. Khurrum Rahman is an author to keep your eye on.''Told with wit and flair, it is both funny and gripping in equal measure. I can't wait for the next one.''One of the most enjoyable books I have read this year''Superb British crime writing.''If you like modern spy novels, such as the excellent, "Slow Horses," series, by Mick Herron, then you will enjoy this. Realistic, intelligent, moving and also full of humour, this is a great read.''Apparently, we haven't heard the last of Jay and I for one can't wait for his next outing, for if it's anything like East of Hounslow it'll be great.'

The brand new instalment in the addictive and gripping Bad Blood series from queen of gangland crime, Caz Finlay ‘If you like Martina Cole and Kimberley Chambers you will LOVE [Caz Finlay]’ Reader Review If you challenge the Carters Connor Carter and Jake Conlon are having trouble with a rival gang, and it’s clear they’ve underestimated their power. But no son of the infamous Grace Carter is going to let someone else run the streets of Liverpool. You must be prepared to fight Then Jake’s right-hand man Danny Alexander is arrested for murder and remanded in custody. The cartel know he’s innocent but the evidence is overwhelmingly against him. The Carters alliance with DI Leigh Moss has always been fragile but it’s time to put aside their differences if they want to find the real killer. As a mole is found in the firm and tensions begin to rise, the Carters must stand together if they want to keep control. It’s time for payback, and no one is safe... Early readers are gripped by Payback Time... ‘Another 5 star read’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘Wow Caz Finlay does it again... full of twists and turns’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘Yet another masterpiece’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘A complex, fast-paced, action-packed story that left me speech- and breathless... excellent’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘Gritty and gripping’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘Utterly fantastic . . . brilliant storyline’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘A cracker of a read . . . one of the best’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘Not one to be missed’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘Caz Finlay draws you in and then you are hooked’ ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐