Lagercrantz shortlisted for 2016 Petrona Award

The Girl in the Spider’s Web by David Lagercrantz (MacLehose Press) is among the titles to have been shortlisted for 2016 Petrona Award for Best Scandinavian Crime Novel of the Year. The list includes Lagercrantz's novel from Sweden, two books from Finland and three from Norway.

In The Girl in the Spider’s Web (translated by George Goulding), Lagercrantz continues the work of the late Stieg Larsson, creator of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy. The judges praised Lagercrantz for continuing the development of Lisbeth Salander, “the most enigmatic and fascinating anti-heroine in fiction”.

The three Norwegian titles shortlisted are Satellite People by Hans Olav Lahlum (Mantle/Pan Macmillan, translated by Kari Dickson), an “accomplished homage to Agatha Christie”, The Caveman, a “beautifully written” crime novel by Jorn Lier Horst (Sandstone Press, translated by Anne Bruce), and The Drowned Boy, a novel which explores the nature of grief, by Karin Fossum (Harvill Secker, translated by Kari Dickson).

From Finland is another Harvill Secker title, Dark As My Heart, a “powerful and involving” literary crime novel by Antti Tuomainen (translated by Lola Rogers), and a title from independent publisher Orenda Books, The Defenceless, an “absorbing mystery” involving an elderly man’s death and the escalating activities of an international gang, by Kati Hiekkapelto (translated by David Hackston).

The 2016 judging panel consists of writer and journalist Barry Forshaw, associate professor of German at Swansea University, Dr. Katharina Hall, and crime novelist, Sarah Ward.

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 at the Gala Dinner on 21st May during the annual international crime fiction event CrimeFest, held in Bristol from the 19th to 22nd May 2016.