Winter Reads (1)

Reading lists

15 crime books perfect for a winter’s day

The Asylum

A chilling Swedish psychological crime novel set between a nursery and a mental asylum, full of sinister intentions, hidden identities and dangerous secrets.

The Swedish master of slow-build terror returns...truly skin-clawing tension.

The Swedes seem to be cornering the market in creepy crime fiction, and this chiller will appeal to fans of Stieg Larsson ... A compelling and scary psychological thriller

Johan Theorin’s first novel, Echoes from the Dead, won The Swedish Crime Academy’s Best First Novel award in 2007, and went on to win the CWA John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger in 2009. His second novel, The Darkest Room, won the Best Swedish Novel 2008, and the CWA International Dagger in 2010. 
 
A journalist by profession, Johan lives in Stockholm, Sweden.

FROM THE WINNER OF THE CWA INTERNATIONAL DAGGER 2010 FOR THE DARKEST ROOM 
 
'A compelling and scary psychological thriller' - Sunday Mirror 
 
Who amongst us can really say they’re sane? 
 
Jan has just started working at the Dell nursery. But this is no normal nursery. It’s linked to a high-security asylum by a dimly-lit underground tunnel, which is used for the children to visit their parents. Who are some of the most dangerous psychopaths in the country. 
 
And Jan has complicated reasons for being here. There’s something he’s not telling people about his past. And there’s someone in the asylum who he really wants to see . . .

Oland Quartet series 3

The Quarry

The third novel from the bestselling Swedish author and winner of the CWA International Award 2010. For fans of Henning Mankell and Stieg Larsson.

If you like Stieg Larsson, try a much better Swedish writer

Johan Theorin’s first novel, Echoes from the Dead, won The Swedish Crime Academy’s Best First Novel award in 2007, and went on to win the CWA John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger in 2009. His second novel, The Darkest Room, won the Best Swedish Novel 2008, and the CWA International Dagger in 2010. 
 
Throughout his life, Johan has been a regular visitor to the Baltic island of Öland, where many of his books are set. His mother's family - sailors, fishermen and farmers - have lived there for centuries, nurturing the island's rich legacy of strange tales and folklore. A journalist by profession, Johan lives in Gothenburg, Sweden.

'Powerful' Guardian 
 
'Haunting' Independent 
 
How close can you get to the truth...before you become the target? 
 
Jerry Morner lives quietly in a cabin by the old quarry, hurting no one. Or that’s what he wants people to believe. It takes one spark and a can of petrol to expose the truth. 
 
The fire is deadly. Not for Jerry, but for the two strangers found burnt to death inside. 
 
His son starts to search for answers. But he soon realises that some secrets are better left to the dead.

Oland Quartet series 2

The Darkest Room

In the bestselling tradition of Henning Mankell and Stieg Larsson, the chilling story of a couple of who live in a house with a secret, murderous past. The winner of the Best Swedish Crime Novel 2008 and a number one bestseller.

A skilful mix of ghost story and crime thriller...this book is outstanding.  It crosses genres effortlessly and keeps all its balls in the air with consummate skill.

If you like Stieg Larsson, try a much better Swedish writer, Johan Theorin, whose first two books (Echoes from the Dead and The Darkest Room) are now available in English. Both self-contained and set on the Baltic island of Oland, both murder mysteries with a sense of the supernatural but explicable all the same

Echoes from the Dead was rightly acclaimed in the UK, and this, his second, is even better. A powerful study of grief, loss and vulnerability, with a commendably earth-bound solution

Throughout his life, Johan Theorin has been a regular visitor to the Baltic island of Öland, where his books are set. His mother's family - sailors, fishermen and farmers - have lived there for centuries, nurturing the island's rich legacy of strange tales and folklore. A journalist by profession, Johan lives in Gothenburg, Sweden.

'The dead are our neighbours everywhere on the island, and you have to get used to it.' 
 
It is bitter mid-winter on the Swedish island of Oland, and Katrine and Joakim Westin have moved with their children to the boarded-up manor house at Eel Point. But their remote idyll is soon shattered when Katrine is found drowned off the rocks nearby. As Joakim struggles to keep his sanity in the wake of the tragedy, the old house begins to exert a strange hold over him. 
 
Joakim has never been in the least superstitious, but from where are those whispering noises coming? To whom does his daughter call out in the night? And why is the barn door for ever ajar? 
 
As the end of the year approaches, and the infamous winter storm moves in across Oland, Joakim begins to fear that the most spine-chilling story he's heard about Eel Point might indeed be true: that every Christmas the dead return...

Oland Quartet series 1

Echoes from the Dead

Winner of the CWA Best Debut Crime Novel 2009: a haunting first novel about a missing child.

Evocative and haunting, with a subtle sense of menace that grows with each page

Simon Beckett, author of The Chemistry of Death

An impressive debut novel...Theorin's excellence in conveying bleak atmosphere is matched by his insight into sensitive family relationships

Fantastic... Theorin's prose is wonderfully descriptive

There is warmth in Theorin's narrative and the gradual piecing together of the story leads to an unexpected denouement

Sheer storytelling grip such as this is relatively rare.  A particular strength is the evocation of locale and atmosphere here; it is masterfully done

Throughout his life, Johan Theorin has been a regular visitor to the Baltic Island of Öland. His mother's family - sailors, fishermen and farmers - have lived there for centuries, nurturing the island's rich legacy of strange tales and folklore. A journalist by profession, Johan is currently working on the third novel.

'An impressive debut novel' The Times 
 
'Fantastic' Guardian 
 
Can you ever come to terms with a missing child? Julia Davidsson has not. Her five-year-old son disappeared twenty years previously on the Swedish island of Oland. No trace of him has ever been found. 
 
Until his shoe arrives in the post. It has been sent to Julia's father, a retired sea-captain still living on the island. Soon he and Julia are piecing together fragments of the past: fragments that point inexorably to a local man called Nils Kant, known to delight in the pain of others. But Nils Kant died during the 1960s. So who is the stranger seen wandering across the fields as darkness falls? 
 
It soon becomes clear that someone wants to stop Julia's search for the truth. And that he's much, much closer than she thinks . . .

Johan Theorin

Johan Theorin, whose fragile, glass-boned narrative style assumes an operatic scale in The Voices Beyond

(Oland Quartet Series 4)

Summer on the beautiful Swedish island of Öland. Visitors arrive in their thousands, ready to enjoy the calm and relaxation of this paradise. 
 
Amongst them is Jonas Kloss, excited at the prospect of staying with his aunt, uncle and older cousins. But it is not as he had hoped. One night he takes a boat out onto the moonlit sea. A ship looms out of the darkness and the horror he finds on board is unimaginable. 
 
Fleeing for his life, Jonas arrives at the door of an elderly islander, Gerlof Davidsson. Once Gerlof has heard his tale of dead sailors and axe-wielding madmen, he realizes that this will be a summer like none other Öland has ever seen. 
 
For one man – the Homecomer – this is a very special journey. He seeks revenge that he’s waited a lifetime to exact…

Johan Theorin

Books by Johan Theorin

Series by Johan Theorin

Oland Quartet

Articles featuring Johan Theorin

15 crime books perfect for a winter’s day

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