sweden

Five-year-old Emil finds his mischief becoming worse and his punishments more bearable after he has Piggy-Beast to share them with.

The murder of a farming couple in Sweden unleashes a wave of xenophobia when it is learned that the woman's dying words were "foreigner." The case is given to Inspector Kurt Wallander, a lover of opera and booze. Part crime story, part look at the attitude of Swedes to immigrants.

"In this latest atmospheric thriller, Kurt Wallander and his daughter Linda join forces to search for a religious fanatic on a murder spree. Just graduated from the police academy, Linda Wallander returns to Skane to join the police force, and she already shows all the hallmarks of her father--the maverick approach, the flaring temper. Before she even starts work she becomes embroiled in the case of her childhood friend Anna, who has inexplicably disappeared. As the case her father is working on dovetails with her own, something far more dangerous than either could have imagined begins to emerge. They soon find themselves forced to confront a group of extremists bent on punishing the world's sinners."--back cover.

Lisbeth Salander, recovering in a Swedish hospital from a gunshot wound, calls upon journalist Mikael Blomkvist to help prove her innocence in the murders of three people; but in order to do so, Blomkvist must uncover a long-buried conspiracy within the Swedish Secret Service.

Mischievous Emil tests out a pair of stilts, rides a horse, and goes on a sleigh ride, all with predictably disastrous results.

Three little Swedish boys want some butter for their bread, but the cow will give no milk because she has no fresh green grass, and there is no grass because the sun has not been shining.