September is a time to refresh, reflect, and resolve, so why not make the decision that starting this fall, you’ll read more international fiction? If crime, mystery, and thrillers are your favorites, you’re in luck, as a new batch of suspense novels arrives on U.S. shores just in time for the changing season. From Spain to Scandinavia to Colombia, noir is the word of the month, as authors bring you tales of the mysterious, the grisly, and the uncanny.
Dolores Redondo, All This I Will Give To You (Amazon Crossing)
All This I Will Give To You, a Spanish bestselling sensation from Dolores Redondo, uses a taut psychological thriller as framework to get at the complexities of a nation in transition. When an author learns his husband has died under mysterious circumstances, it triggers a soul-searching journey into his past, and his country’s past. You can read an exclusive excerpt here.
Elisabeth Norebäck, Tell Me You’re Mine (Putnam)
For those looking for new Scandi noir, we recommend Tell Me You’re Mine, by Elisabeth Norebӓck, a tale of therapy and secrets. In the following passage, a therapist leading a group therapy session encounters a young woman with a hidden agenda, and who may just be the daughter that Norebäck’s protagonist gave up for adoption, long before.
Susanne Janson, Forbidden Place (Grand Central Publishing)
This debut marks the first appearance in English of a major new voice in Scandinavian crime fiction. A young woman returns home to her town of Mossmarken, hopeful that the terrible events that occurred there in her childhood will not repeat themselves. When a body is discovered in a peat bog, and other strange events begin to occur in the town, Jansson’s protagonist must discover if the town’s troubles are man-made or otherworldly.
Teresa Solana, The Prehistoric Serial Killer (Bitter Lemon Press)
In this new collection of short stories from Barcelona-based writer Teresa Solana, The First Prehistoric Serial Killer, events occur as bizarre and darkly humorous as the title of the collection itself. You can read an exclusive excerpt from the short story “The Son-in-Law” here.
Gianrico Carofiglio, The Cold Summer (Bitter Lemon Press)
Gianrico Carofiglio’s novel The Cold Summer takes us into the midst of mob violence in the early 90s. In a landscape where the mafia can frequently be glamorized at the expense of representing the human costs of the violence that underpins the organized crime world, The Cold Summer is the hard-hitting fictional portrayal of the Italian mafia that American audiences need.
Juan Gabriel Vasquez, Shape of the Ruins (FSG)
Gabriel Vasquez’s latest, The Shape of the Ruins, is a major achievement and a return to form for one of Colombia’s literary stars. An attempted heist of a grisly artifact starts the story, but it quickly spirals out into a wild jumble of paranoia, inchoate crime, crimes remembered, and, above all, conspiracy theories. Gabriel Vasquez has an incredible grasp on tone and manages to keep a certain aloofness to the novel’s voice, while simultaneously plunging us into distorted, traumatized minds.
