Sweden book series in reading order

by Camilla Lackberg

by Hakan Nesser

by Henning Mankell

by Fredrik Backman

by Per Wahloo

by Roslund-Hellstrom

Helene Tursten

15 books• 3 series

Helene Tursten, born in Gothenburg in 1954, writes Swedish crime fiction. Police procedurals make up most of the catalogue: the Detective Inspector Huss books, which open with Detective Inspector Huss (2003), and the later Detective Inspector Embla Nystrom series, both following women officers through murder investigations. The Äldre dam books run alongside the police novels. Fifteen titles are catalogued, ending with Snowdrift (2020).

Camilla Lackberg

23 books• 5 series

Camilla Lackberg is a Swedish crime writer and screenwriter. The Fjällbacka novels are the best-known part of the catalogue, set in Fjällbacka and featuring the police detective Patrik Hedström; The Ice Princess (2004) opens that sequence. 23 books are catalogued in all, through to Dreams of Bronze (2026), and they also take in Faye's Revenge and the Mina Dabiri and Vincent Walder series. Sweden, murder investigation, serial murders and police procedure define the subject tags.

Kjell Eriksson

9 books• 1 series

Kjell Eriksson is a Swedish crime writer, and Ann Lindell, a detective chief inspector, leads Eriksson's central series. The Swedish Crime Academy named the first Lindell novel Best First Novel of 1999, and Prinsessan av Burundi, the fourth, took the Best Swedish Crime Novel award in 2002; Öppen grav, published in 2009, ended the series as its tenth novel. Nine books are catalogued here, from The Princess of Burundi (2006) to The Deathwatch Beetle (2021). Sweden, missing persons and murder investigation are the recurring subjects.

Mons Kallentoft

18 books• 2 series

Mons Kallentoft is a Swedish author and journalist who grew up in Ljungsbro, outside Linköping, and lives in Stockholm. Twelve of his books follow Police Inspector Malin Fors, a series translated into 28 countries and published in English as Midwinter Sacrifice in the UK and Australia and as Midwinter Blood in the United States and Canada. The Zack Herry novels follow. Eighteen catalogued titles reach Angelz (2025).

Fredrik Backman

13 books• 5 series

Swedish author Fredrik Backman, born in 1981, also works as a blogger and columnist. A Man Called Ove (2012) opens his catalogue of 13 books, which runs to My Friends (2025). Other titles include My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry, Britt-Marie Was Here, Beartown, Us Against You, Anxious People and The Winners. His books were number one bestsellers in Sweden and have been published in more than twenty-five languages. Subjects include hockey teams, neighbours, friendship, and fathers and sons.

Henning Mankell

35 books• 9 series

Kurt Wallander, a police detective in Sweden, is the figure Henning Mankell is known for. Mankell's catalogue holds 35 books, from A Bridge to the Stars (1990) to The Rock Blaster (2020), and takes in the Joel Gustafsson and Linda Wallander sequences, the Fredrik Welin novels, the Sofia Alface books, children's fiction and non-fiction. Faceless Killers (1991) and The Dogs of Riga (1992) are among the early titles.

Mari Jungstedt, born in Stockholm in 1962, is a Swedish crime novelist and journalist. The Anders Knutas series began with Unseen (2003) and set its first five books on the island of Gotland, pairing a detective superintendent with the journalist Johan Berg. Later series move south, in the Canary Island books and Malagasviten. Twenty-one titles are catalogued through 2024, several translated into English by Tiina Nunnally and two filmed for Swedish television. Jungstedt reported for Swedish public radio and television before writing fiction.

Hakan Nesser

21 books• 5 series

Inspector Van Veeteren and Gunnar Barbarotti are the detectives Hakan Nesser returns to across 21 catalogued books published between 1998 and 2022. Nesser, born in 1950, is a Swedish crime novelist and former teacher whose work has been translated into more than twenty languages. The catalogue opens with Munsters Fall (1998) and ends with The Axe Woman (2022); police procedural work, investigation and murder in Sweden run through it. Carambole took the Glass Key award in 2000, and Nesser has won the Best Swedish Crime Novel Award three times.

Per Wahloo

15 books• 2 series

Per Wahlöö (5 August 1926 to 22 June 1975), also credited in English as Peter Wahloo, was a Swedish author born in Kungsbacka Municipality, Halland. Wahlöö and partner Maj Sjöwall wrote ten novels about Martin Beck, a Stockholm police detective, published from 1965 to 1975. The Laughing Policeman, the fourth Beck novel, won the 1971 Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Novel. Wahlöö and Sjöwall also wrote novels separately. The catalogue lists 15 books from A Necessary Action / The Lorry (1960) to The Terrorists (1975), plus an Inspector Jensen series.

Rebecka Martinsson, a Swedish lawyer drawn into murder investigations, carries every book Asa Larsson has published. The series runs to 6 thrillers across two decades, from Sun Storm / The Savage Altar (2003) to Sins of Our Fathers (2023), at an average of four years between titles. Sweden and its mining country supply the setting. Volumes median 371 pages, and no new book has followed 2023.

Christoffer Carlsson is a Swedish criminologist who writes crime fiction. Born in Halmstad in 1986, he has seven books catalogued between 2013 and 2023. The Leo Junker novels run from The Invisible Man from Salem (2013) through The Falling Detective (2014), Master, Liar, Traitor, Friend (2015) and October is the Coldest Month (2017). The Halland Suite follows with Under the Storm (2019), Blaze Me a Sun (2021) and The Living and the Dead (2023). Stockholm, murder and criminal investigation are the recurring subjects.

Torquil MacLeod writes Swedish crime fiction in English. Inspector Anita Sundström works murders, missing persons and cold cases in Malmö across most of the catalogue, and the titles alliterate on the city: Meet Me in Malmö (2010), Murder in Malmö, Midnight in Malmö, Menace in Malmö, Malice in Malmö, Mourning in Malmö, Mammon in Malmö and Myth in Malmö (2025). The Jack Flyford Misadventures make up the second series. Twelve books in total.

Ake Edwardson

8 books• 1 series

Åke Edwardson, born 10 March 1953 in Eksjö, Småland, is a Swedish author of detective fiction and a former journalism lecturer at the University of Gothenburg. Many of the Inspector Erik Winter novels are set in Gothenburg. Edwardson has won the Swedish Crime Writers' Academy Award for best crime novel three times. Sun and Shadow was the first title translated into English, in 2005, followed by Never End in 2006. The catalogue lists 8 books from Death Angels (1997) to Room No. 10 and Samurai Summer (both 2005).

Leif G.W. Persson

8 books• 3 series

Leif Gustav Willy Persson, born on 12 March 1945, is a Swedish criminologist and novelist. Crime fiction dominates the catalogue: subjects record murder, assassination, terrorism investigation, detective and mystery stories, and settings in Sweden and Stockholm. Three series carry the Persson name, Story Of A Crime, Evert Bäckström, and Jarnebring & Johansson. The 8 catalogued books run from The Pillars of Society (1982) to The Sword of Justice (2013), taking in Between Summer's Longing and Winter's End (2002), Another Time, Another Life (2003), Linda, As in the Linda Murder (2005), Falling Freely, as If in a Dream and He Who Kills the Dragon (both 2007) and The Dying Detective (2010). One of Persson's four children, Malin Persson Giolito, is also a crime writer.

Viveca Sten

17 books• 4 series

Swedish crime is Viveca Sten's field. The Sandhamn novels open with Still Waters (2008) and run through Closed Circles (2009), Guiltless (2010), In Harm's Way (2013) and In the Name of Truth (2015); the Are Murders and the Whispering Sea Mysteries follow, with a cookbook listed beside the fiction. Police work, murder investigation and a woman lawyer recur across the subjects. Sten's catalogue holds 18 books, and Hidden in Mercy is scheduled for 2027.

Will Dean is a British-born crime writer living in Sweden. The Tuva Moodyson Mystery series is Dean's best known work, built on a deaf journalist of that name and set in Sweden: Dark Pines (2018), Red Snow (2019), Black River (2020), Bad Apples (2021), Wolf Pack (2022) and Ice Town (2024). Kidnapping, captivity and escape number among the subjects of the other books, The Last Thing to Burn (2021), First Born (2022) and The Chamber (2024) among them. Eleven Dean titles are catalogued, reaching Adrift (2026).

Kristina Ohlsson is a Swedish writer and political scientist who has worked in counter-terrorism for the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe and for the Swedish Security Service. The crime novels came after: Fredrika Bergman opens the catalogue with Unwanted (2009), Silenced (2010) and The Disappeared (2011), and the Martin Benner books follow. The Glass Children (2013) and The Silver Boy (2014) are written for younger readers. Ten titles are catalogued to 2019, set largely in Stockholm.

Tove Jansson

74 books• 2 series

Tove Jansson created the Moomins. Jansson was a Finland-Swedish author, comic strip artist, painter and illustrator who lived from 1914 to 2001, studied art in Helsinki, Stockholm and Paris between 1930 and 1938, and held a first solo exhibition in 1943. Seventy-four books are catalogued from The Moomins and the Great Flood (1945) to Little My (2024), among them Comet in Moominland (1946), Finn Family Moomintroll (1948), Moominsummer Madness (1954), Moominland Midwinter (1957), Tales from Moominvalley (1962) and Moominpappa at Sea (1965). Comics, picture books and translations fill much of the list, at a median of 76 pages, with Moominland named among the subject headings.

Roslund-Hellstrom is the byline on the Ewert Grens series, with 12 catalogued books from 2004 to 2022. The Beast (2004) comes first, followed by The Vault (2005) and Cell 8 (2006). Three Seconds (2009), Two Soldiers (2012), Three Minutes (2016) and Three Hours (2018) are later titles, and 100 procent (2022) is the most recent. Subject tags set the books in Stockholm, Sweden, and list police procedurals, prisons, drug traffic, undercover operations and revenge.