The best of Frozen crime fiction.

I love novels set in the colder climes of the world. I’m from Scotland where it is often cold, but I was thinking of the places where it is “Freezing”. I enjoy Crime fiction and so am set to answer this question.

Swedish, Icelandic and Norwegian Crime writers are often excellent. Asa Larsson, Camilla Lackberg, Jorn Lier Horst, Steig Larsson and so many more are excellent purveyors of crime fiction. Yet I wish to draw your attention to two of the best.

The Crow Girl by Erik Axel Sund.

It starts with just one body – the hands bound; the skin covered in marks.

Detective Superintendent Jeanette Kihlberg is determined to find out who is responsible, despite opposition from her superiors. When two more bodies are discovered, it becomes clear that she is hunting a serial killer.

With her career on the line, Kihlberg turns to psychotherapist Sofia Zetterlund. Together, they expose a chain of shocking events that began decades ago – but will it lead them to the murderer before someone else dies?

'A compulsive page-turner' Sunday Express

'Compelling... we are left gasping for breath' Daily Mail

The other is the classic.

One snowy day in Copenhagen, six-year-old Isaiah falls to his death from a city rooftop. The police pronounce it an accident. But Isaiah's neighbour, Smilla, an expert in the ways of snow and ice, suspects murder. She embarks on a dangerous quest to find the truth, following a path of clues as clear to her as footsteps in the snow.

These are two of the best.

If you read them, I hope you like them.

Ray