Review by C.J. Bunce
For anyone tired of mystery TV series that drag one crime story over six, eight, or even ten episodes, you might find The Åre Murders a refreshing change of scenery. Not a good old fashioned crime-of-the-week series like the French series Haut Potentiel Intellectuel, it does successfully work two compelling crime stories into its five-episode debut on Netflix. The latest international Netflix production (titled Åremorden in Swedish), is a “Nordic noir” series based on novels by Viveca Sten. With quality dubbing and/or English caption options, English-speaking audiences will jump right in as twentysomething Stockholm police officer Hanna Ahlander (played by Carla Sehn) decides to assist the local constabulary while on a sabbatical in the tiny frozen town of Åre (pronounced roughly “uh-reh”), a popular ski resort in the northern, tundra region of Sweden. Dispensing with many of the tropey, clichéd flaws of the average crime show, The Åre Murders is both refreshing and suspenseful, arriving as the first great drama series of 2025.
If your only exposure to Nordic noir is the Netflix Polish series Detective Forst, don’t worry–the only thing these series have in common is the snow. It doesn’t need any disturbing sex and gratuitous violence to tell its story. Despite a body left to freeze on a ski lift and another dismembered from being hit by a train, directors Joakim Eliasson and Alain Darborg and writers Karin Gidfors and Jimmy Lindgren don’t drag viewers into the in-your-face gore of True Detective. The script of the second crime story dips into the creepier material of The Clearing, The Bridge, Sinner, and Thirteen, but only slightly, yet it doesn’t lack in suspense. This is much closer to the quality writing, cinematography, and acting of the Scotland noir series Shetland (one of our favorites, discussed here) and the Welsh noir series Hinterland (reviewed here). The only exception is that if you prefer complex mysteries or big crime conspiracy plots, this isn’t that either. It’s all fairly straightforward, maybe even predictable, but somehow the setting and real-life dynamics of the two leads make up for it.
Although we don’t yet learn the specifics as to why Officer Ahlander retreats to her sister’s resort for a few weeks from her job in Stockholm (we know it’s something to do with her boyfriend/spouse and a complaint against her for harassment), it’s clear she isn’t after rest, just distraction. So when a local woman disappears on Ahlander’s first night in town, she volunteers to go out with the search crew. She can’t help but ask questions of the locals and digs up some leads, which she shares with local officer Daniel Lindskog, played by Kardo Razzazi, and his boss Birgitta Grip, played by Pia Johansson. Officer Lindskog takes the information, but Ahlander hits it off with Grip, who formally gets her assigned to her short-staffed force temporarily, to partner with Lindskog on the case.
Lindskog is the typical emotionless, by-the-book cop. He’s not thrilled to inherit a partner from elsewhere and needs to research her background before approaching a level of trust with her. A bit of the vanilla work-life balance thread is woven into his story, but it serves to inform his character more than be some producer’s punchlist item. In three episodes the two cops get accustomed to each other’s styles and are able to solve their first crime together, with none of that typical, modern series obligatory romance between them. Ahlander’s character is more nuanced, bringing a background in domestic abuse crimes that helps her gain a rapport with victims and interview subjects in the investigation, particularly when apparent cult activity and human trafficking enters the picture.
The show has a solid supporting cast that seems plucked from the local community, with Charlie Gustafsson and Francisco Sobrado as two other cops in the force and Maxida Märak filling out the requisite TV show crime team as the coroner. Amalia Holm is also very good as a local woman stuck in an abusive relationship.
It’s one of the best series so far this year. With quality dubbed voices and/or subtitles, catch The Åre Murders now streaming on Netflix.
