Denise Rudberg (b. 1971) resides in Stockholm, her hometown, together with her husband and their four children. She has studied film and dramaturgy in New York, but currently works as a writer and columnist. She also makes regular appearances at national morning television shows and writes drama for Swedish Radio. In 2020, Rudberg celebrated twenty years as an author, and ten years of her Elegant Crime series, with the release of the tenth instalment about Marianne Jidhoff.

Her series about Prosecutor Marianne Jidhoff has sold over 1.5 million copies and has established Elegant Crime as a new sub-genre within the well-established Swedish crime novel tradition.

Rudberg is also a successful writer of feel-good, with a backlist of titles such as Sthlmqueens and Jenny S. She has written several young adult novels, of which her first, Tillsammans, won an award as the bestselling YA novel of the year.

Denise is currently active with several series. God Save the Queen, published in 2025, is the third instalment in her Queen series. The first novel in The Codebreaker series was published in 2019, with its latest instalment, A Seventh Brigade, published in 2026. Her highly popular series about Marianne Jidhoff will see its thirteenth book, Thirteen Reasons to Stay Silent, published in 2026 as well.

Agents: Erik Larsson & Elin Sandström Lundh

Published Norstedts, November 2026
Genre Crime
Pages 300

Rights sold
All rights available

Marianne Jidhoff and her external investigation unit are drawn into a case where the silence is at least as threatening as the crime itself.

An exclusive dinner on Karlavägen in Östermalm, Stockholm, has ended in disaster. At first, it looks like an armed robbery – unknown men have forced their way into the flat, and the host has been severely assaulted. Then silence falls. No one seems willing to reveal what actually happened that evening. Everyone says a little, but no one tells the whole story.

Marianne realises that behind the polished façade of Östermalm, there must lie loyalties, conflicts and motives that someone is prepared to protect at any cost.

Thirteen Reasons to Stay Silent is the thirteenth book in Denise Rudberg’s much-loved series about Marianne Jidhoff – a thriller about power, loyalty and dangerous secrets behind closed doors.

Published Norstedts, June 2026
Genre Historical Fiction
Pages 265

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Refusing to be a bystander whilst the world falls apart – a novel about courage, desperation and sisterhood in the shadow of war.

In November 1942, news reaches the outside world that 1,200 Norwegian Jews have been forcibly deported to German-occupied Poland. Shortly afterwards, another deportation is announced, and it is no longer possible to gloss over the persecution or deal with it through diplomacy.

A Seventh Brigade is a novel about a brutal awakening for neutral Sweden. At the same time, the three friends – Signe, Elisabeth and Iris – are facing personal realisations, each grappling with their own challenges in their private lives.

Elisabeth realises that her modern view of the role of women is not shared by everyone, whilst Iris, a new mother of three with a heavy traumatic past, is torn between responsibility and frustration. Signe’s burning desire to make a difference leads her to make a decision that takes her far from the security of her home.

With dramatic tension and a strong sense of history, Denise Rudberg, in the seventh instalment of The Codebreaker series, depicts moral courage, female strength and the decisive actions that take place far from the battlefields – yet which can mean the difference between life and death.

Published Norstedts, November 2025
Genre Crime
Pages 312

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All rights available

The third part of Denise Rudberg’s highly successful crime series

Work continues at the Stockholm Police’s Violent Crimes Unit whilst Detective Inspector Karin “Kaiser” Johansson mourns her late husband. The events surrounding the Stockholm brothel scandal have cost several of her colleagues their lives, and in the midst of her grief she is forced to witness once again how those in power will stop at nothing to hinder their work.

Agneta Thorén carries out her duties in the police archives, but she also has her own agenda: to bring the man who has been stalking her for so long to justice. After coming into conflict with a male colleague, she is sent on a special mission – and finds herself plunged straight into one of the darkest chapters in modern Swedish history.

Many are prepared to do anything to conceal the truth. Now it is a matter of gathering evidence and protecting witnesses, so that the perpetrators can be brought to justice once and for all. The only question is whether this is possible, when corruption in the justice system reaches right up to the very top of the government …

God Save the Queen is a gripping, historically grounded crime novel about power, betrayal and cover-ups. It is also a portrait of 1970s Sweden – a country full of optimism and hope, but also a place where those who ask uncomfortable questions run the risk of being silenced for good.

Published Norstedts, November 2024
Genre Crime
Pages 300

Rights sold
Danish: People’s Press
Finnish: Gummerus

The second part of Denise Rudberg’s highly successful crime series

Police Inspector Karin “Kaiser” Johansson is forced to take involuntary leave after the dramatic events that led to the death of a close colleague. But it is not long before she is asked to return to duty: a body is found in Ryssgraven outside Kungsängen. The body is stuffed into two large plastic bags, and everything indicates that it is a sheer execution. When the police realise that the tracks lead directly to Rosenbad, they must gather all their resources. Karin is given the task of leading the investigation and soon she is embroiled in a cat and mouse game with major political implications.

Agneta Thorén continues to work in the police archives and takes increasing liberties to obtain information in politically sensitive investigations. At the same time, she is deeply unhappy. Her daughter has been taken away because her parents believe she cannot look after herself and her child. She is faced with an impossible choice: to continue to seek evidence against corruption in power or to be a responsible mother to a young daughter.

Killer Queen is a police procedural set in Sweden in the 1970s. It’s a time and a place that may seem idyllic on the surface, but that is also full of conspiracies swept under the rug to protect the men in power.

Published Norstedts, November 2023
Genre Crime
Pages 302

Rights sold
Danish: People’s Press
Finnish: Gummerus

In Dancing Queen, we are introduced to two police officers: the formidable Karin "Kaiser" Johansson, poised for a leadership role within the violent crimes division, and the young, struggling Agneta Thorén, who independently venture into a web of deceit, crime, and high-level establishment conspiracies.

When a sex worker from a famous brothel turns up dead in the upper-class Östermalm neighbourhood, Karin “Kaiser” takes on the case. Karin’s fellow police officer and closest friend in the force, Mollan, has been investigating a legendary brothel madame and is about to take the case to trial. Mollan seems to hold important information about the death, but for some reason she refuses to share it with Karin. Days later, Mollan jumps in front of a train.

Karin can’t shake the impression that she saw someone on the platform push her, and that Mollan had no intention of committing suicide. Could it be that there is more to Mollan’s investigation than meets the eye? When a series of anonymous typewritten notes starts appearing, Karin begins suspecting that someone wants to silence her. Could it be the same powerful forces that were threatened by Mollan’s investigation?

Shortly after joining the force, Agneta sustains a hearing loss injury during a hostage drama at the West German Embassy and gets relegated to desk duty deep down in the police archives. Life isn’t made easier by the challenges of being a single mother to her daughter and living at her parents’ farm. She catches a break when she secures a flat in the middle of Östermalm. During her work at the archives, Agneta begins to notice a series of odd, small discrepancies in the police’s paperwork. Her findings point to a web of cover-ups that connect high-ups in the police force and the political establishment to a famous brothel in Östermalm. Soon, however, she begins receiving strange typewritten notes and starts to fear that a threatening figure from her past has come back to haunt her.

Reviews

"Denise Rudberg just gets better and better. There have been many crime novels set in the recent past written in the last few years – seldom is it done as well as in Denise Rudberg's hands."
– Lotta Olsson, Dagens Nyheter