Crime writers from the Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden) have become some of the most widely read authors of the 1990s and 2000s. Yet books by such authors as Henning Mankell, Liza Marklund, Karin Fossum, and Anne Holt have also tantalized readers, because many of them do not know the cultures of the Nordic countries. As the first study in English of Nordic crime fiction, ''Scandinavian Crime Fiction'' spells out the context into which Nordic crime fiction fits through thirteen articles on the history, aesthetics, and film and television adaptation of Nordic crime fiction.