Flood, Roslund and Adolfsson shortlisted for Petrona Award for Best Scandinavian Crime Novel of the Year

Helene Flood, Anders Roslund and Maria Adolfsson have made the shortlist for the Petrona Award for Best Scandinavian Crime Novel of the Year, alongside Ruth Lillegraven, Lilja Sigurðardóttir and Antti Tuomainen.  

This year’s shortlist sees Norway represented with two novels; Sweden with two; and Finland and Iceland with one each. The judges said they selected the shortlist from a “particularly strong pool of candidates”, with the shortlisted titles ranging from police procedural and domestic noir to the darkly comic. 

Adolfsson is shortlisted for Fatal Isles, translated by Agnes Broomé (Sweden, Zaffre), while Flood is in contention with The Therapist, translated by Alison McCullough (Norway, MacLehose Press). 

Lillegraven’s Everything is Mine, translated by Diane Oatley (Norway, AmazonCrossing) is up for the award alongside Roslund’s Knock Knock, translated by Elizabeth Clark Wessel (Sweden, Harvill Secker) and Sigurðardóttir’s Cold as Hell, translated by Quentin Bates (Iceland, Orenda Books). Tuomainen’s The Rabbit Factor, translated by David Hackston (Finland, Orenda Books) completes the list.  

The judges said: “As ever, we are extremely grateful to the six translators whose expertise and skill have allowed readers to access these outstanding examples of Scandinavian crime fiction, and to the publishers who continue to champion and support translated fiction. The significantly increasing number of female writers being translated is also to be commended.” 

The award is open to crime fiction in translation, either written by a Scandinavian author or set in Scandinavia and published in the UK in the previous calendar year.   

The winning title will be announced on 8th December 2022, and the author and translator will both receive a cash prize.