Lightning lands Scandi crime classics

Lightning Books has scooped rights to two classic works of Scandinavian crime fiction. 

Lightning Books editor-at-large Scott Pack acquired worldwide English-language rights to Stein Riverton’s The Iron Chariot (originally published as Jernvognen in Norway) and Palle Rosenkrantz’s The Forest Lake Mystery (originally published as Hvad Skovsøen gemte in Denmark). 

English translations by Lucy Moffat (The Iron Chariot) and David Young (The Forest Lake Mystery) were first published as ebooks by the Abandoned Bookshop in 2017 and 2018. The translations will be published by Lightning, an Eye Books imprint, in paperback for the first time in the UK on 25th November 2019. 

Pack said: "Much, if not all, of the Scandinavian crime that fills the bestseller lists today owes a debt to these two authors and I felt it was criminal (no pun intended) that there were no English translations readily available of their most important novels. Lucy and David have, with their translations, helped to bring these classics to a whole new audience. They deserve to be in every bookshop in the country."

Written in 1909, Riverton’s The Iron Chariot was recently voted the greatest Norwegian crime novel of all time, and Norway’s biggest crime-writing award, the Riverton Prize, is named after the author. Rosenkrantz’s The Forest Lake Mystery was published in 1903 and is seen as the first-ever Danish crime novel. The author is considered to be the godfather of Danish crime fiction, according to Lightning Books, and the Palle Rosenkrantz Award is Denmark’s main prize for the genre.