Making a killing,Nordic style

Camilla Lackberg has written seven blockbuster novels in her native Swedish but,no one bothered with her outside her country. Now all thats changed....

She has a tattooed,secretive,bisexual computer hacker named Lisbeth Salander to thank for it.

Publishers and booksellers are in a rush to find more Nordic noir to follow Stieg Larssons Millennium trilogy,known for the indelible characters of Salander and the investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist. The books have become a publishing phenomenon,selling 35 million copies worldwide nearly four times the population of Sweden.

Scandinavian crime fiction has been popular among serious mystery readers for decades,but even best-selling novelists like Henning Mankell are not yet widely known in the United States.

If there is a formula to the genre,it often includes a cold,stark setting and a grizzled detective figure who consumes too much coffee and junk food. The book covers tend to the bleak and icy,with images of frozen lakes,barren forests and perhaps a foreboding bloodstain.

Their protagonists are aggressive,but more subdued than in American crime fiction, said Dave Callanan,a senior editor for books at Amazon.com. Theres a slight cynicism to them.

Scandinavian writers who have had small but devoted followings are now seeing their books showcased alongside Mr. Larssons extraordinarily popular series. In March,a mystery by Mankell,who has been publishing books in Sweden since 1973,reached The New York Times hardcover best-seller list for the first time. The fall catalogue for Minotaur Books,part of Macmillan,notes that Hypothermia,by the Icelandic author Arnaldur Indridason,will be marketed directly to fans of Mr. Larsson. Knopf recently signed Mr. Nesbo,a Norwegian novelist,to a three-book deal. I think Larsson readers might turn to some of the other ones, said Sonny Mehta,chairman of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.

Only months after the American publication of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo in 2008,Jessica Case,an editor at Pegasus Books,took an interest in Ms. Lackberg,a raven-haired former economist who is a best-selling author in Sweden but a virtual unknown in the United States. The publisher gave Ms. Lackberg a hefty advance one of the highest advances weve ever paid, Ms. Case said and carefully planned the American debut of the first book,The Ice Princess,for June.

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Even non-Swedish mystery writers seem to be inspired by the Scandinavian genre. James Patterson,the prolific author of breakneck thrillers,chose Stockholm as a setting for The Postcard Killers,a book coming out in August that he wrote with Liza Marklund,a Swedish novelist.

Larssons books have caught on because of their ambitious scope,complex characters,strong writing and quick storytelling,said Cathy Langer,the lead buyer for the Tattered Cover stores in Denver and not only because of their Scandinavian setting. So will the other writers be able to ride on his popularity?

Its a tricky line to walk, Ms. Langer said. If you try to duplicate the experience,youre likely to disappoint the customer.