Lars Kepler's novels are always tense and graphically violent. The Stalker is no exception. A killer posts videos of women filmed through the windows of their houses minutes before they are brutally murdered. Police Superintendent Margot Silverman remembers a similar murder nine years earlier for which a priest, Rocky Kyrklund, was convicted. However, he has been imprisoned in a secure mental institution ever since. Silverman enlists the help of Joona Linna, Kepler's extraordinary action-man detective, whose unconventional methods eventually unmask the murderer. The Stalker is darkly vivid, as Kepler creates nightmares with words.

The Prophets of the Eternal Fjord. By Kim Leine. Atlantic Books. $29.99.

Danish-Norwegian writer Kim Leine's fourth novel is constructed around events that took place more than 200 years ago in Denmark, Norway and Greenland. In 1787, newly ordained priest Morten Falck rejects a comfortable parish in Denmark to travel to Greenland to be a missionary. However, the settlement at Sukkertoppen is primitive and conditions are harsh. The native Inuit have established a separate, almost utopian village, in the nearby Eternal Fjord. There they practise their interpretation of Christianity. Through Falck and his experiences, Leine explores concepts as diverse as faith, morality, atonement and the devastating impact of European colonialism.

In the Month of the Midnight Sun. By Cecilia Ekback. Hodder and Stoughton. $32.99.

In her second novel, set in 1856, Cecilia Ekback returns to her fictional Blackasen Mountain in far north Sweden. After three settlers are murdered by one of the indigenous Sami, the Minister of Justice sends his son in law, Magnus, to investigate. The minister's daughter Lovisa is sent with him in disgrace. Her father tells Magnus "you can leave her up north". Ekback interweaves three contrasting voices to tell her story, Magnus, Lovisa and an old Sami woman, Ester, as secrets are uncovered in a world where cultures collide.