Books like A Death in Sweden — picked by fans

I love this book because it turns the biblical idea of good versus evil into something frighteningly human and tangible.

What stayed with me was not the plague or the supernatural elements, but how ordinary people reveal who they truly are when the world collapses. I felt constantly unsettled by how thin the line is between morality and survival.

This story made me reflect deeply on faith, corruption, and the fragile nature of civilization in ways that few novels ever have.

The cold war holds a special spot for me. The USSR's internal conflicts are very similar to what Russians I knew escaped from before and during the buildup of the USSR talked about. I re-read this last year and found it still exudes the mysterious feel of Mother Russia. Maybe even more so now.

Arkady Renko, a Moscow homicide investigator, investigates a crime that isn’t possible because there are no murders in the Soviet Union. It must be the work of an insane person or infiltrator. Arkady struggles to do justice for the people he serves, and the bureaucrats are looking to sweep it all under the rug. Great twists make for great stories.  

It is difficult to imagine a list of great novels about the Middle Ages that does not include this book.

I read it first when I was in graduate school, and it brought so much of what I was studying to life – the monastic world of its setting with all its contradictions and spectacular architecture; fights over religion and the true nature of spirituality; the non-linear nature of medieval literature. 

I love how it can be read on one level as a page-turny murder mystery and on another as a post-modern novel that explores the nature of signs and meaning. Its mystificatory preface reveals the distance between the medieval world and what we can say about it.

I love this fast, fun short story set in 16th-century London. I love scenes that exude character. Finding a body anywhere is gruesome, but finding one in a unique setting is magical. Especially when the author and the main character have the same last names.

A historical thriller, the author took pains to get correct. As a bonus you can click the footnotes and see how the author wrote the scene. I love that there is a lot packed into a very short story. It left me wishing it was longer.

I was enthralled by this dark, terrifying historical thriller, and its being based on a true story made it more unsettling. The gothic horror vibe of Scandinavian dark winters and the island setting heightened my dread as I read. The rising tension had me on the edge of my seat.

Gustawsson has created an atmospheric mystery story that connects past and present murders—9 years apart. I didn’t know who to believe or trust, and I didn’t figure out the motive until the end. Multiple viewpoints and numerous twists and turns kept me guessing. Just when I thought I knew what was happening, another piece of information took me in a different direction, only to be thwarted yet again. I couldn’t have predicted the ending. It’s masterful storytelling.

There are great, believable, but also sinister characters, making it a complex read. The plot is rooted in Viking rites and sinister secrets… show more.

I found this book when surfing the Baen public library on their site. It was free to read, and I liked some of the short stories I had read from Eric Flint. 

Holy crap, nothing prepared me for the rollercoaster ride that this novel was. I loved the no-nonsense character that he gave to the main character. Add to that the fantastic alt-history spin he put to the story, and I was hooked.

I can completely understand why so many other authors added their own stories to the universe that Eric Flint created.

Out of the many Christmas picture books my children received when they were small, this is the one that still gets pulled out and re-read every year.

Annika and her family draw us in as they prepare for the annual Christmas Eve smorgasbord. We hope, along with the main character, Annika, that this year we’ll be lucky and find an almond in the rice pudding, granting us our dearest wishes for the year.

We feel Annika’s moral dilemma when she does find the almond and wonders what she should wish for. Her love for her disabled little brother helps us understand once again that selfless love is at the heart of our favorite holiday.

Christina of Sweden, known today primarily through Greta Garbo’s portrayal of her in the 1933 film, became queen at age six when her father was killed in battle; she received the education of a prince, including the study of statecraft, for which she read the Latin biography of Elizabeth I. Initially deemed a boy at birth, Christina’s habit of crossdressing, her refusal to marry, and her romantic attachments to both women and men bespeak her ambiguous sexuality. Veronica Buckley’s biography does justice to this idiosyncratic and controversial figure who abdicated her throne, converted to Catholicism, and moved to Rome. Although she took Alexander the Great as her model and sought to rule Naples and Poland-Lithuania after her abdication, she revealingly recorded in her memoirs her thoughts concerning the predicament she faced as a female sovereign: “Women should never be rulers... Women who rule make themselves ridiculous one way or the… show more.

Henning Mankell (RIP) was the master of the ‘troubled detective’ Kurt Wallander, who is trying to find a murderer while his own life is in tatters. This hunt for a serial killer who scalps his victims, is a rich tapestry of character development, police procedure, and a deeply disturbed killer. This is one of the finest stories of the dark Scandinavian crime thriller genre, and spawned a major TV series starring Kenneth Branagh.

This is just one of several books by these brilliant academics who have done so much to make people aware of the huge Scottish presence in Europe and the incredible influence they had on their host nations. I use many stories gleaned from Steve in my own book. 

Steve points out that while many Scots served in the Swedish army in the 17th century as professional soldiers, they were not merely content to be part of the military élite. Their penetration into the exclusive field of diplomacy is revealed by the negotiations between Sweden and Denmark-Norway to end the Kalmar War in 1613. Representing the Danish side was Robert Anstruther, on the Swedish side was James Spens. No only were they both Scots, they were half-brithers from the East Neuk of Fife! They did quite literally ken each ither’s faither!