Criminally good (translated) reads....

These are the names / Tommy Wieringa ; translated by Sam Garrett
A border town on the steppe. A small group of emaciated and feral refugees appears out of nowhere, spreading fear and panic in the town. When police commissioner Pontus Beg orders their arrest, evidence of a murder is found in their luggage. As he begins to unravel the history of their hellish journey, it becomes increasingly intertwined with the search for his own origins that he has embarked upon. Now he becomes the group's inquisitor ... and, finally, something like their saviour.

Beg's likeability as a character and his dry-eyed musings considering the nature of religion keep the reader pinned to the page from the start. At the same time, the apocalyptic atmosphere of the group's exodus across the steppes becomes increasingly vivid and laden with meaning as the novel proceeds, in seeming synchronicity with the development of Beg's character.

The killing forest / Sara Blaedel ; translated by Mark Kline
Following an extended leave, Louise Rick returns to work at the Special Search Agency, an elite unit of the National Police Department. She's assigned a case involving a fifteen-year-old who vanished a week earlier. When Louise realizes that the missing teenager is the son of a butcher from Hvalsoe, she seizes the opportunity to combine the search for the teen with her personal investigation of her boyfriend's long-ago death . . .
Louise's investigation takes her on a journey back through time. She reconnects with figures from her past, including Kim, the principal investigator at the Holbaek Police Department, her former in-laws, fanatic ancient religion believers, and her longtime close friend, journalist Camilla Lind. As she moves through the small town's cramped network of deadly connections, Louise unearths toxic truths left unspoken and dangerous secrets.
The boy in the shadows/ Carl-Johan Vallgren ; translated by Rachel Willson-Broyles
In an overcrowded Stockholm underground station a father and his two boys are late for their train. Joel, the youngest, is howling in his pushchair and his seven-year-old brother, Kristoffer, refuses to take the lift. A woman approaches and offers to lead Kristoffer up the stairs. Reluctantly his father agrees, but when he arrives on the platform Kristoffer and the woman have vanished without a trace. Many years later, Joel, now an adult, goes missing in suspicious circumstances. His wife turns to Danny Katz - an old friend - for help. But Katz isn't the only one trying to find Joel, and the deeper he digs the more secrets he uncovers about the wealthy and powerful family at the heart of the investigation. Then suddenly, the case takes a dramatic new turn.


Vanished / Lotte and Søren Hammer ; translated from Danish by Martin Aitken
Lying at the bottom of his apartment stairs, a postman is found dead. At first glance, his death appears to be a tragic accident. However, when Detective Superintendent Konrad Simonsen is called to investigate, he notices that something doesn't add up. Did he fall? When life-sized images of a vanished girl are discovered plastering the walls of the dead man's attic, the case takes a new and sinister turn. Who is she? Could she be alive? Soon the homicide team find themselves delving into the past, but as they approach the truth, Simonsen is forced to confront long-hidden skeletons in his own cupboard.

To catch a killer  / Nele Neuhaus ; translated by Steven T. Murray
Detective Pia Kirchhoff is about to leave on her long-delayed honeymoon when she hears that a woman has been shot while out walking her dog. Then more long-range shootings swiftly follow, and it becomes clear that a highly trained serial killer is on the loose. The victims seem to have just one thing in common: they were all good people with apparently no enemies. So why are they dead? As fear of the sniper grows among local residents, all leave is cancelled for the Frankfurt police department as they are put on red alert. The pressure is on Kirchhoff and her colleague, Oliver von Bodenstein, to find the killer before he can tick another name off his hit list.


The man who watched women / Hjorth & Rosenfeldt ; translated by Marlaine Delargy
As a heatwave blazes in Stockholm, a series of women are found brutally murdered and the Criminal Investigation Department is getting nowhere. The murders bear all the hallmarks of Edward Hinde, the serial killer jailed by psychological profiler Sebastian Bergman fifteen years earlier. Sebastian desperately needs some order in his chaotic life. The revelation that he has a daughter, Vanja, could provide this longed-for stability. But should he tell her the truth and risk destroying her life and career? Forcing his way into the investigation, Sebastian soon learns that the murders are connected to him and that no one around him is safe. Including Vanja.

The other son  / Alexander Söderberg ; translated from the Swedish by Neil Smith
How far would you go to protect your family? Sophie Brinkmann was once an ordinary woman. A dedicated nurse, a grieving widow, a single mother to a beloved teenage son. And then she fell in love with a major crime lord. When he was left in a coma after a brutal attack by his rivals, it was Sophie who had to take control of his empire and negotiate with vengeful mobsters, cunning detectives and charismatic arms dealers. But now their rivals are closing in on them and Sophie is caught up in a game where the rules are constantly changing, where loyalty and friendship are meaningless. If she and her son are to get out of this alive, she has to find her inner strength - and her inner darkness


A song for drowned souls / Bernard Minier ; translated by Alison Anderson
They find the boy by the swimming pool, dolls floating on its surface. Inside the house, his teacher lies dead. But he claims to remember nothing... Marsac is a quiet town in the Pyrenees, best known for its elite university. But when one of its professors is murdered, it becomes clear that the tranquil surface is a lie. The chief suspect is the son of Commandant Servaz's university sweetheart; and when she implores him to investigate, he cannot refuse. To close the case, Servaz must delve into his own past and re-open old and terrible wounds. It will be his most dangerous - and his most personal - investigation yet.


Oblivion / Arnaldur Indriðason ; translated from the Icelandic by Victoria Cribb
The truth and other lies/ Sascha Arango ; translated by Imogen Taylor
Famous bestselling author, loving husband, generous friend—Henry Hayden is a pleasant person to have around. Or so it seems. And when his mistress, who is also his editor, becomes pregnant, his carefully constructed life threatens to fall apart.

So Henry works out an ingenious plan. Craftily and cold-bloodedly, he intertwines lies and truths and all the shades of grey in-between.

But when he tries to get rid of his mistress, Henry makes a terrible mistake. Not only are the police soon after him, but his past, which he has painstakingly kept under the carpet, also threatens to catch up with him with deadly consequences.