More than a half-century ago, the great historian of the mystery genre, Howard Haycraft, drew attention to the fact that virtually all mystery fiction was created in England and the United States, with a soupcon in France. It was his very sensible theory that only in a country that was free and democratic could the detective story flourish. If a reader lives in a state in which the police are the enemy and the oppressors, it is unlikely that a mystery novel in which the hero is a member of the law-enforcement community will provide pleasure.

This state of affairs inevitably had the occasional exception, but until the past couple of decades it was nearly impossible to name a half-dozen German mystery writers, say, or those from Japan, Italy, Russian, China, India, Spain – in fact, anyplace other than the United States or United Kingdom. Even the French, with the greatest number of mystery writers who don’t work in the English language, had to claim a Belgian, Georges Simenon, to elevate their number.

All this has been rapidly changing as the world shrinks, and in the past few years we have seen successful debuts by authors from Russia, Sweden, Japan, Italy, Norway, and other locales that, in another era, would have been called exotic.

While many of these books have turned out to be a real treat, I guess it is a tribute to egalitarianism (if you value that sort of thing) that bad books are now being translated, too.

Take “Shadow Family” (Kodansha, 188 pages, $22.95) by Miyuki Miyabe. I came to this with very high expectations, since the same publisher released one of my favorite books of 2003, “Out” by Natsuo Kirino.

The plot outline for “Shadow Family” sounds truly original. In this police procedural, a middle-aged businessman is found murdered and so is a college-aged young woman – who, we soon learn, was having an affair with him. Gee, you’re thinking, I’ve never heard of something like this before.

It seems the gentleman was part of an online chat-room that had the structure of a family; he was the father. This family became very real to its members, and they eventually began to meet each other in real life. The fantasy life of the virtual family, and the relationships within that nuclear grouping, eventually became more important than some members’ actual families. When the murdered man’s real-life daughter informs the police that she is being stalked, it’s clear that the line between reality and fantasy has been blurred beyond recognition.

Ms. Miyabe is the best selling mystery writer in Japan, has won numerous awards, and her previous book published in the United States, “All She Was Worth,” won rave reviews. Imagine, then, my disappointment in wading through prose so leaden it would be banned at every gas station in America. Hyperbole? Here’s a sample:

Three days before the 3-chome Niikura incident, sometime after nine on the evening of April twenty-fourth, a college student named Naoko Imai (21) had been strangled at the karaoke club Jewel in Matsumae, Shibuya Ward, where she’d been working parttime; that case fell in the jurisdiction of Takegami’s Fourth Squad. At that time, Third Squad was on stand-by (and therefore able to take on the sub sequent case in Niikura), leaving Nakamoto with nothing in particular to do, so he’d helped Takegami set up a desk for the task force in the South Shibuya Police Station.

Got that?

It is possible that Ms. Miyabe has been focusing on quantity – she has produced 35 novels and several short story collections since 1992 – rather than sharpening her prose. It is also possible that in Juliet Winters Carpenter she got unlucky with a translator. What is not possible is that you could read “Shadow Family” all the way through without nodding off.

While we’re in Japanese mode, permit me to mention an excellent short story collection by Koji Suzuki, “Dark Water” (Vertical, 279 pages, $21.95). The stories are not easily classifiable, veering between fantasy, horror, and mystery, but I can guarantee the level of suspense will give your heart a good workout.

In the opening story, “Floating Water,” a single mother’s young daughter appears to have a make-believe friend who happens to have the same name as the little girl who disappeared from the same apartment building a few years earlier. When she consistently notices a terrible taste in the tap water (as well as small particles floating in it), she becomes suspicious of the water tower atop the building, and just what it might contain.

One of my new favorites is the Swedish Henning Mankell, who happens to be the seventh best-selling writer in the world, although he only recently has become known in the United States. He has written 35 novels of mystery and suspense; like all Swedish crime fiction, it is bleak and cold and depressing. That may not sound like a ringing endorsement, but read his work in a warm room (this is New York, so most of us don’t have working fireplaces, alas) and you’ll be fine. The strength of the prose and the beautifully constructed plots more than make up for the dreariness of the landscape – and of more than a few of the people, come to think of it.

Though most of Mr. Mankell’s police procedurals (nine, to be precise) are about Kurt Wallander, “Before the Frost” (New Press, 383 pages, $24.95) features Wallander’s daughter, Linda, in what has the earmarks of a new series. That would be fine with me. Linda has many of the same qualities that make her father a good cop and a good human being: morality, dedication, intelligence. You could do worse than spend an evening with her as she tries to find her missing childhood friend and her father tries to deal with a psychotic who is maiming and killing animals.

It’s winter, so reading about Swedish crime seems as appropriate as ordering cassoulet for dinner instead of a large green salad. And a lot more satisfying than sushi.

Mr. Penzler is the proprietor of the Mysterious Bookshop in Manhattan and the series editor of the annual “Best American Mystery Stories.” He can be reached at openzler@nysun.com.