98 books like The Savage Altar

This book blew me away! 

Lisbeth Salander, the lead female character, is one of the most beautifully drawn, exciting, indomitable, and powerful women I have ever read about in a story. She is not just strong, she is also brilliant – as a super-hacker on the internet to boot.

Thankfully there were two sequels as I could read book after book with her in it.  

Kallocain is a dystopian Scandi Noir written by feminist writer Karin Boye. Like The Handmaid’s Tale, it shows a state where there are eyes and ears everywhere. However, in this world, a scientist discovers a drug that can force people to tell the truth, which poses many philosophical questions while pitting people in the novel against each other. Kallocain has a suspenseful and intriguing plot where you’re never quite sure how the characters are going to act. A brilliant read!

What happens when a client turns on a therapist? I hope I never find out.

I picked up Helene Flood's novel out of curiosity. As a writer, I wanted to know how Flood turns two people sitting in a room quietly talking into a plot that will hold readers' attention. I don’t want to give anything away, except to say her book deftly and accurately shows a clinician using her training to solve a terrible crime and save herself.

It was easy for me to identify with both the protagonist and the author. Flood and I are both practicing psychologists specializing in trauma. I’m grateful for a good read and a reminder to screen potential clients carefully.

Focusing on a deeply disturbed serial killer, this book got under my skin! I felt such a wide range of emotions reading this, from fascination to fear and shock, and couldn’t stop turning the page. Although the central character, detective Joona Linna, features in all the Kepler books, this book can be read as a stand-alone. 

Johan Theorin has received so much praise and accolades for this book that it feels a bit repetitive to heap more on. But here goes anyway. Like most of the books recommended here this one couples a mystery and a ghost story, never leaning completely to one side. The family moving into and restoring an old house is not exactly trailblazing in the ghostly realm but that does not matter at all. There is never too much of a good thing in my opinion. But make no mistake that a haunted house is not all that is being dealt with here, enter lighthouses, past shipwrecks, and drownings. Throw in present-day drug-addicted burglars, a tragedy, and excerpts from an old manuscript and the outcome is a master class in eeriness, drawing from an incredible sense of place and great storytelling.     

Annika Bengtzon is another strong woman reporter working in a man’s world. She’s married to a man very involved in his own career. They have two children and Annika struggles to balance chasing after a story with looking after the kids and keeping house. Most women can relate to her very real pressures and will empathize with all that she goes through on the home front. I liked her tenacity and intelligence and almost reckless pursuit of a killer. Marklund is Swedish and I enjoy learning more about the country—another cold, northern setting. Her character develops over the series with gritty crimes at the centre of the stories.

There are so few novels in English that explore Gustavian Stockholm, and this is a thrilling page-turner set in 1793 that explores the dark side of the capital city one year after the assassination of King Gustav III. Mikel Cardell, a watchman with a brutal past in the army, and Cecil Winge, an investigator who is hovering near death himself, team up to find the perpetrator of a heinous murder. Author Niklas Natt och Dag (translates to Night and Day — an old aristocratic name) has written a story steeped in graphic, gory period detail and authentic atmosphere.  

Musician, poet, drunkard, genius, and scoundrel, Carl Michael Bellman was a fascinating historical figure that I badly wanted as a character in my novel but had to cut. If music can define an era, then Bellman is the voice of the Gustavian age. This wonderful, illustrated non-fiction work brought Bellman and 18th century Stockholm to life for me; I borrowed it from the library for two years while working on the first draft of my own book. (Eventually, I bought my own copy.) Bellman’s songs and spirit remain part of Swedish culture today. 

One early summer afternoon, the body of a young woman is dredged from the mud of Lake Vättern, and Detective Inspector Martin Beck of the Swedish National Police is assigned to the case. Who was she? Who killed her? These questions remain unanswered for months and months (and months). Catching a killer, it seems, is a slog, and the routines of police work are captured here in all their tedium. And this is exactly why I love this book, as it compellingly dramatizes (to quote from Henning Mankell’s introduction) “the fundamental virtue of the police: patience.” There’s a heroism to these steadfast and rumpled men, and something thrilling about their dogged, often frustrating, yet ultimately successful pursuit of the truth.

When I met my husband’s family a couple of decades back, his cousin told me: “You’ll never survive a relationship with a Swede if you do not know what “Lagom” is ”Lagom is our way of life.”

“Lagom” could be translated as “the right balance.” It means not too much and not too little. It can apply to work or to alcohol consumption. The Swedes often say “Lagom är bäst,” “Lagom is best”.

With a great sense of humour, Everdahl sheds an interesting light on Swedish culture. You’ll never see the Vikings the same way after this read!