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About Police Procedurals
Police procedurals, a type of mystery novel invented by Ed McBain, focus on the particulars of a police investigation, including teamwork, interrogation, forensics and the politics, protocols, and processes of a police force. In recent years, many police procedurals set in the Scandinavian countries have been translated into English to the delight of English-speaking readers.
Directory of Police Procedurals
(Bestsellers first, then alphabetically by author's last name)
The Department Q Thrillers are genuinely suspenseful and darkly humorous, so it is not surprising that they top Danish--and international--bestseller lists. In each book, the members of police Department Q race against the clock to solve the case before the next victim dies.(Bestsellers. Police Procedurals. Set in Denmark)Sonchai Jitpleecheep's adventures are more frenetic than most because his boss--the guy who runs the police department--is a corrupt crime-lord who keeps giving Sonchai confusing and life-threatening assignments. (Bestsellers. Noir aka Hardboiled. Police Procedurals. Funny. Set in Thailand.) 
(2014, Department Q Thrillers #5)
by Jussi Adler-Olsen
Translated to English by Martin Aitken
In a league of its own. Thrills, spills, chills and suspense from the top of the Danish bestseller list.
Summary: The three oddball cops in Department Q have offices deep in the basement of police HQ because boss Carl Morck is so obnoxious that the chief of detectives doesn't want to see him. Charged with chasing down cold cases, Carl and assistants Rose and Assad have an unbeatable case clearance record and unwavering determination to overcome all obstacles--personal, personality and bureaucratic--and get the bad guys.
In The Marco Effect, everybody--from a Roma clan to child-soldier assassins to Eastern European gangsters--wants to kill fifteen-year-old pickpocket Marco because he knows where the body is buried. Can Department Q get Marco to safety before the bad guys blow him away?Review: Edge-of-the-seat suspense in an exciting and original page-turner from a master of the genre. It's got everything: action, intrigue, a sordid political cover-up, scary villains, dark humor and loveable heroes.
This is one of my favorite police procedurals because it is a terrific combination of black humor and action.More about the Department Q Thrillers including list of books in chronological order, series review, series guide, book reviews and book summaries (Bestsellers. Police Procedurals. Set in Denmark.)
(2010, Inspector O Mystery/ Thriller Books #4)
by James Church
How do cops investigate serious crime in a through-the-looking glass, totalitarian society without a criminal justice system?
Summary: Inspector O is a city cop in Pyongyang, North Korea, a paranoid, totalitarian state without laws or a justice system in the sense that Westerners understand them. And yet, O is expected to investigate serious crime, a challenge in a society in which everyone mistrusts authority, no one will answer his questions and O's superiors throw him into dangerous situations with no warning or explanation. The interest here is not in whodunit but in whether or not O will survive the investigations. Death does follow him around in these books.
In The Man with the Baltic Stare, the possibility of reunification with the South makes for strange--and deadly--bedfellows. Plus: Cloak and dagger exploits in MacauReview: Another intense book from James Church, who has created one of the most captivating and creepy worlds in crime fiction. This one really got under my skin. As usual, the wonderful physical descriptions enrich the reading experience. Great writing.
This is one of my favorite police procedurals because it is a crazy, upside down world where no one trusts anyone and truth is not the point--survival is. A scary read.More about the Inspector O Mystery/ Thriller Books including list of books in chronological order, series review, series guide, book reviews and book summaries (Noir aka Hardboiled. Police Procedurals. Literary. Set in North Korea)
Cops Catching Crooks in Sweden, Denmark, North Korea and Germany
Dark cold-case police procedurals with roots deep in painful past tragedies, the kind of sorrowful personal histories that the hero, Inspector Erlendur is trying to escape in his own life. (Bestsellers. Police Procedurals. Set in Iceland.)Former cop Bernie Gunther chases murderers in the most murderous regime in history: Nazi Germany. Bernie left the Berlin police force before the Nazi's could throw him out and sets up shop as a P.I. investigating missing persons, mainly Jews. Eventually he is forced to become a military cop and is posted to different locations in Nazi-occupied Europe. (Bestsellers. Noir aka Hardboiled. Historical. Cops. Set in Nazi-Occupied Europe.) Swedish Everyman police officer Kurt Wallander is one of the all-time great detectives. He worries. He whines. He wheezes. And he solves spectacular, over-the-top crimes in Ystad, Sweden aided by a long-suffering team of police investigators. (Bestsellers. Police Procedurals. Set in Sweden.) Chief Inspector Gamache of the Surêté du Québec probes for emotional truth as well as for facts. What emerges is a rich world of complex characters: brave, funny, loving and, every so often, lethal. (Bestsellers. Cozies. Police Procedurals. Set in Three Pines, Quebec, Canada)Usually, the heroes in Nordic Crime are a morose bunch, but detective Gunna Gisladottir proves that you can do it all--catch the bad guys, take care of the children and run up the stairs two at a time--without succumbing to despair, depression or heart failure. She's a winner and so is this series. (Police Procedurals. Female Hero. Set in Iceland.)BFFs Rick and Lind investigate the same crimes for different reasons: one is a cop, the other a journalist. Nicely paced investigations and nuanced descriptions of people and communities--no cliches here. (Police Procedurals. Female Heroes. Set in Denmark.)Scary, unsettling, unconventional mysteries. Imagine being a city cop in a paranoid, totalitarian state (North Korea) where black is white, up is down, and even the most usual interactions have a through-the-looking-glass feel. Such is Inspector O's predicament. (Noir aka Hardboiled. Police Procedurals. Literary. Set in North Korea.)
Impressionistic Nordic police procedurals with more violence and less angst than Wallander (Police Procedurals. Set in Sweden.)In each book Inspector Singh of the Singapore police travels to a different location in South East Asia to investigate a murder. These are funny cozies with a charming, if cranky, detective and cultural insight(Cozies. Police Procedurals. Set in S.E. Asia.)
1929. Berlin, Germany teeters on the brink of madness. In the last months of the Weimar Republic, a manic energy fills the city's streets--a city where every excess, deprivation and depravity can be found. Inspector Willi Kraus, the most famous detective on the Berlin police force (and its only Jewish one), follows the evidence wherever it leads, even if that gets him into trouble with his superiors or makes him a target for Nazi persecution.(Historical. Police Procedural. Weimar Republic. Berlin, Germany. Anti-Semitism. Nazi rise to power. Europe between World Wars I and II)
1943. Sarajevo, Yugoslavia. Gregor Reinhardt, a former police detective, currently an officer in the occupying German Army, is posted to Sarajevo where he investigates the murders of German soldiers. Usually, the German Army responds to the deaths of their soldiers with reprisals against the civilian population, not investigations. So his fellow soldiers respond to Reinhardt with significant hostility. This is an unusual police procedural because Reinhardt is not part of a police department.
(Historical. Police Procedural. World War II. Military. Set in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia (now Bosnia and Herzegovina.))
Boston cop Magnus Jonson doesn't fit in at the Reykjavik Violent Crimes Unit where he has been assigned to brief the peace-loving Icelanders on American-style (i.e. very violent) crime. The Icelanders won't let Magnus carry a gun, bully the suspects or follow his gut. And his superiors seem to expect that he will obey orders. (Police Procedurals. Iceland.)
(1999, Kurt Wallander Mystery Books #6)
by Henning Mankell
Translated into English by Steven T. Murray
WINNER! Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger for Best Crime Novel of the Year
A powerful police procedural from international superstar Henning Mankell
Summary: Inspector Wallander and the homicide team in Ystad, Sweden struggle to cope with increasing crime and decreasing resources. These gripping, dramatic books have made Wallander and writer Henning Mankell international superstars.
In Sidetracked, a young girl sets herself on fire in front of Wallander's eyes. Then, a retired justice minister is found murdered and scalped on the beach. These are just the first in a series of dreadful crimes that feels unending. Wallander postpones--again--a longed-for vacation in order to lead the investigation and worries that something in Swedish society is so irretrievably broken that the horror will never stop.Review: Read it. Right now. This book casts a powerful spell. Wallander remains the King of Nordic crime.
This is one of my favorite police procedurals because the cops are trying to keep going in a tsunami of trouble: crimes they don't understand, new rules and procedures that make no sense to them, and none of them are getting any younger. They're valiant.More about the Kurt Wallander Mystery Books including list of books in chronological order, series review, series guide, book reviews and book summaries (Bestsellers. Police Procedurals. Set in Sweden.)
Above: Author Henning Mankell
Above: Author Jussi Adler-Olsen
Above: Author James Church
(2010, Willi Kraus Thrillers #1)
by Paul Grossman
As Germany slides into the terror of the Nazi era, a Jewish detective fights to protect the vulnerable
Summary: In the last months of the Weimar Republic, a manic energy fills Berlin's streets--a city where every excess, deprivation and depravity can be found. Inspector Willi Kraus, the most famous detective on the Berlin police force (and its only Jewish one), follows the evidence wherever it leads, even if that gets him into trouble with his superiors or makes him a target for Nazi persecution.
The Sleepwalkers (#1) takes place in 1932. A Bulgarian princess disappears in Berlin. A young American woman with a shaved head and strange surgical scars dies of hypothermia in the Spree River. The evidence takes Willi to a naturist society, a bootgirl, an SS clinic and a popular hypnotist.Review: Gripping. This book is a lot of things: a page-turning thriller, a snapshot of a world that is about to end, abruptly and overnight, a portrait of a man who is about to lose his profession, his country, his feeling that he has a place in the world. Outstanding.
More about the Willi Kraus Thrillers including list of books in chronological order, series review, series guide, book reviews and book summaries
(Historical. Police Procedural. Weimar Republic. Berlin, Germany. Anti-Semitism. Nazi rise to power. Europe between World Wars I and II)
Above: Author Paul Grossman
