In entirely other news, Chris Bertram has a great discussion over on Crooked Timber about, as one commenter puts it, glum Nordic detectives. That's my Summer reading sorted. I'd also throw Blackwater by Kerstin Ekman into the ring. What it loses in not being a detective novel it gains in mid-Summer desolation.

And also, like bludgeon, the word glum is just not used enough. I mean, living in Belfast you'd think opportunities to employ these sorts of words would be ten to the penny.