a few more links

My new resolution is to get less backlogged, so here are a few more Scandinavian crime-related links.

Glenn Harper, who seems lucky in all things film and television-related, has not only been commenting on Scandinavian television series such as one based on Gunnar Staalesen’s Varg Veum series, he has some fascinating back story on the filming of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. He is reassuring about the choice of the lead playing Lisbeth Salander – not an easy role to cast, but utterly key to the story.

A brief review of Arnaldur Indridason’s Hypothermia in the Guardian gives me chills. Everything sounds very cold, indeed.

Also in the Guardian, Mark Lawson ponders what has made Larsson’s trilogy so popular and concludes that it’s a combination of feminising the genre making a conspiracy thriller that usually draws a male audience more accessible as well as the universality of failed government policies. He also thinks the author’s untimely death adds to the urgency of his social message. Of course, the sad conflict over the proceeds of the books is a drama all its own.

Mike Ripley reminds us again of the Battle of Maldon (“so many Vikings keen to advance”) and warns of another a new Swedish author to arrive on English shores soon, Camilla Ceder who will debut with Frozen Moment due out next summer when perhaps we’ll all need a cold drink and a chilly mystery.

Thumbs Up, Down, and Sideways

Maxine finds some things to like about Matti Joensuu’s To Steal Her Love, but wishes the narrative spent less time seeing the world from the perspective of a deranged synesthesiac burglar.

Yvonne Klein also has reservations about Johann Theorin’s The Darkest Room, finding all the character development and atmospherics of the slow build-up don’t pay off in the suddenly dramatic climax.

And continuing the streak of negativity, I confess to being left cold by Erik Winter in his first outing, Death Angels – which combines a gory plot with a cool and distant hero given to existential moments.

On the other hand, John Timpane of the Philadelphia Inquirer thinks highly of Box 21.

Dark, often crushingly grim, Box 21 introduces us to a world of characters who hate what they do for a living. I count at least two police detectives, one junkie, one doctor, a welter of crooks, and at least one social servant who see the veneer peel off their careers, revealing the shabby, agonized self-deception beneath.

Heroes and heroines are here, to be sure, and in the end the book is a celebration of love. But Box 21 teaches a hard truth, forces us to admire people we cannot like, to see when we’d rather turn away. It holds us still and makes us look. . . . .

Like its Nordic noir fellows, Box 21 is profound, with much to show, much to say, much to set in play, on the human condition. It’s a novel with a heart, even if it’s a hardened heart.

And a reviewer at Book Gazette thinks Karin Alvtegen’s Betrayal is a terrific read.

In Betrayal, Alvtegen gets inside the minds of her characters and sometimes even describes the same scene from different perspectives. This technique helps build suspense as it allows the action to unfold gradually. The reading experience is interesting. The reader slowly pieces together the story by collecting impressions, information and important clues, coming at the main narrative from different angles.

Betrayal’s plot is powerful, yet Karin Alvtegen’s novel is as much about individual histories and relationships as it is about what actually happens. The multiple betrayals give rise to dynamics that, as a reader, you just know must end in disaster. How, when, for whom, however, are unknowns. There is little violence, but still the suspense is continuously building. Action drives action. There are no punishments and no rewards, there are only consequences.

 

 

the “why” of Scandinavian crime fiction

Spiked has a thoughtful piece on Stieg Larsson, Sweden, and why Swedish crime fiction has so much to say about things going wrong:

…Through the prism of violence, misogyny, murder, perversion and breaches of justice, Swedish crime writers are taking a forensic look at their society, passing a magnifying glass over the calm surface of what to many right-wingers and liberal lefties is still a socialist’s dreamland….

Perhaps it is precisely the strength of the image of Sweden as a civilised, democratic, equal and pacifist society – the nice kid just to the west of the former Eastern block – that gives its crime writers, many of whom have become international bestsellers, their allure. The calmer the surface, the more forceful the revelations of supposed sordidness simmering beneath it. . . .

While Larsson may have wanted to expose some of the illusions of the happy-go-lucky Swedish welfare state, his faith in decent protectors of Swedish ideals and tolerance shines through. The Millennium books depict a clueless police force, inept social services, a sleaze-hungry media industry, and a corrupt secret service, but the book also introduces us to plenty of characters from within these cherished Swedish institutions who live by their employers’ stated ideals. Mostly they are women.

…if this success can help challenge the stereotype that Sweden is a utopian social democratic state filed with buxom blondes and suicidal depressives, that will be a good thing.

Maxine reviews Inger Frimansson’s The Shadow in the Water – a followup to a book she reviewed last month, Good Night My Darling, pronouncing more unsettling than the first, finding it “a very disturbing novel, clouded and obscured by perceptions and suspicions so that nothing is what it seems.”

She also reviews Jo Nesbo’s The Redeemer. “I think the Harry Hole books comprise one of the top police-procedural series being written today. Although the books have flaws, they are flaws of ambition – the plots are very clever, and if perhaps they are sometimes a bit too clever, that’s better than the opposite. These novels are thoughtful, intelligent, exciting and above all, have a great central character.”

Karen Meek has a great review of Don Bartlett, translator of many of our favorite Norwegian writers, including Jo Nesbo. Read part one, part two, and part three. In answer to why Scandinavian crime is so popular he calls it a “welcome surprise” – and goes on to say:

The best Scandi crime fiction has a strong sense of place, evocative writing, thinking characters, an interest in the fabric of society and our lives today, the ‘why’ of crime rather than the ‘how’. It has adapted solid models in a relevant, personal way.

Finally, The Register reports that a Norwegian consumer council has found the Kindle in violation of Norwegian law because its warranty is too short (in Norway they should last five years, not one year), there are privacy concerns, and – my favorite – the terms of service themselves are problematic: “the very language used is probably illegal, as Norwegian law requires such contracts to be clearly written.”

reviews and views

Still catching up . . .

Marilyn Stasio reviews Box 21 by Anders Roslund and Borge Hellstrom and finds it “a movie trapped in a book” – given the drama as a badly abused woman takes hostages in a hospital – but concludes “for all their cinematic hyperbole, the authors don’t contribute to any further degradation of Lydia, who makes a believably tragic model for all the real women exploited by human traffickers.” She seems as puzzled as I was that no credit is given for the translator.

Michael Carlson’s irresistible target is The Devil’s Star by Jo Nesbo, not flawless but very good indeed:

Nesbo has created one of the great detectives in Harry Hole, and what is most impressive is the way he’s able to make Hole seem like a different person as he’s reflected in the actions and vision of various characters. He is a sympathetic character who rarely asks for sympathy, a Wallander with a touch of Marlowe’s idealism, and a hidden resevoir of white knight charm. And Nesbo is very happy to work on complicated plots and old-fashioned, if un-traditional clues.

Maxine reviews Inger Frimansson’s Good Night, My Darling at Euro Crime – which she finds atmospheric, gripping, and haunting. She also, in her Petrona incarnation, finds Gunnar Staalesen’s The Consorts of Death, very good indeed. “As with the best of PI and other crime fiction, the appeal of the Varg Veum books is not only their plots and the gradual development through the protagonist’s life and times, but their sadness at the human condition, a strong sense of social justice, and their wonderful sense of place.” The review in the Independent would seem to agree.

The Guardian thinks Jo Nesbo’s The Redeemer is too long. I think the review is too short – barely over 100 words. What’s the point? Why not just tweet your feelings? No wonder book reviewing the “proper” way is going to the dogs.

The Economist reads the Millennium Trilogy and advises that we “don’t mess with her” – the “her,” of course, being Lisbeth Salander, a character who is the “most original heroine in many years.”

The trilogy’s success shows that complex characters, a fast-paced narrative and a dazzling mosaic of challenging plots and sub-plots can keep readers hooked. The books are long and profoundly political. The sinister conspiracy being played out in the dark reaches of the Swedish security services is an important ingredient in the alchemy that has made the books so successful. Swedish writers have extensively explored the frail heart of the Scandinavian social-democratic dream; Stieg Larsson’s cynical realpolitik carries him from the cold war to the present-day murder of inconvenient witnesses. . . .

Larsson’s knowledge of the inner workings of the Swedish police, intelligence service and private security companies bring an extra layer of texture and verisimilitude. There are occasional lapses into didacticism: Blomkvist probes the murky world of female sex-trafficking which readers already know is an evil and sordid business. There are also some wildly dramatic incidents—at the end of the second volume and the start of the third, for instance—that stretch credibility to the limit. But Larsson’s vivid characters, the depth of detail across the three books, the powerfully imaginative plot and the sheer verve of the writing make “The Millennium Trilogy” a masterpiece of its genre.

Glenn Harper of International Noir Fiction on The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest – “I’d still argue that the 10-volume Sjöwall/Wahlöö opus remains the pinnacle of Swedish crime, but Larsson puts his very individual stamp on the genre and also brings the form into the 21st century’s criminal, information, and political environment.”

Brought to you by the Letter D: Maxine highlights Danish author Lief Davidsen in her “alphabet in crime fiction.”

And now on to various opinions and thoughts about the genre….

Lots of kerfuffle about Jessica Mann’s decision as a reviewer to avoid misogynistic paint-by-numbers violence, peculiarly reported in the press as a decision to abandon book reviewing altogether or as an indictment of the entire genre – none of which is true, if you actually read her essay.  The F-Word, a British Feminist publication offers a lengthy discussion of why Stieg Larsson, professions of being a feminist notwithstanding, is actually a mysogynist because of “his explicit descriptions of sexual violence, his breast-obsessed heroine and babe-magnet hero.” I’ll grant you the babe-magnet Blomqvist being a bit of wishful projection, perhaps, but writing about violence against women doesn’t mean you actually enjoy it. I think Melanie Newman is off-base to compare the (admittedly somewhat over-the-top) gruesome sex abuse uncovered in the first book with James Patterson’s enormously popular if artless serial killer entertainments. Steve Mosby has a thoughtful (and yes, somewhat irritated) response to Newman’s article, as well as a longer examination of the wider issues which picked up quite a bit of traffic from readers of the New Yorker.

Paul Ames finds that “Sweden has Murder on its Brain.”

Within the 27 nations of the European Union, only Germany, Austria, Malta and Slovenia have lower murder rates than Sweden. In 2006 there were 91 murders registered in Sweden. In the same year, 84 crime novels were published in the country.

Peter Wahlqvist, a Goteborg-based lecturer in crime fiction, said the international success of Swedish thrillers results from a combination of good writing, a taste for the exotic and the contrast between the make-believe mayhem and common foreign perceptions of Sweden as a blond, healthy, welfare state utopia.

“It’s for real, psychologically about real people and about real life, real society,” said Wahlqvist.

Books to the Ceiling, in a series on “mysteries going global,” considers the popularity of Scandinavian crime.

And Glenn, via Petunia, has found a statue of Varg Veum leaning against the wall outside the office in Bergen where the fictional PI hung out his shingle.

one step behind

… or more accurately, more than a month behind. Things get quite absurdly busy in the first half the semester and between the usual super-charged workload and going to two conferences (one of them Bouchercon) I have had very little time to compose my thoughts. Or read. Eating and sleeping have been a bit hit and miss, too.

However, I am well aware that The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest has been getting lots of attention. Today Mack captures his thoughts about the book and links to several good reviews among the best of bloggers, including Maxine’s at Euro Crime, Bernadette at Reactions to Reading, and Dorte at her Krimiblog. If I could be so crass as to sum up readers’ responses before having read the book itself, it is that a)it’s a baggy, sometimes over-detailed, and (like the others) incredibly involving novel; b) it has elements of conspiracy, espionage, journalism, and courtroom drama; and c) Salander is less front and center but remains the heart and soul of the story, which has a powerful social conscience. Finally, the bad news is that you really shouldn’t read it until you’ve read the first two books; the good news is that they are all very worth reading.

One thing that strikes me about these immensely popular books is that readers everywhere are willing to forgo cheap thrills and slick writing for a somewhat unpolished but deeply principled narrative that isn’t ashamed to show its political colors. This is a testament to readers’ tastes that I hope publishers will heed. Books that are not James Patterson knock-offs or mass-produced happy meals can be successful. So how about putting your shoulder behind some really good books for a change, hmmm?

Right now, US publishers are all atwitter about the fact that big box stores and Amazon are selling ten of the “big books” being released for the Christmas season at a discount so steep they are actually taking a loss – selling them for less than the wholesale price. It has prompted the American Booksellers Association to file a  predatory pricing complaint with the Justice Department.  If one of the Millennium Trilogy had a November release and landed on the top ten (as they have done) would Wal-Mart and Target be using it away to entice readers into their stores to buy other goods? Or would the “people who liked this book” algorithm finish with “aren’t likely to shop at Wal-Mart”?

Maybe there isn’t any algorithm like that at work. After all, you’d think people who read Barbara Kingsolver would shop local and support independent bookstores, but her new book is one of the ten being dangled like bait by discount stores. Attention, shoppers: social conscience and critique of corporate power on sale in aisle three!

By the way, I was pleased at Bouchercon to see both Stieg Larsson and Arnaldur Indridason get awards. The US cover of The Girl With a Dragon Tattoo even won an award (which puzzled me since I didn’t care for it much…) The fact that the Barry Award for “best book published in the UK” went to a Swedish book caused some head-scratching, but it’s a small price to pay for getting these books before we do.

I also donated a selection of Scandinavian crime fiction for the charity auction which reported prompted a fair amount of bidding, though I had to leave before the event and only have that information second-hand.

cold comfort

Irresistible Targets takes aim at the latest Arnaldur Indridason novel in the Erlendur series and thinks Hypothermia scores a bull’s eye. Read the whole review; it’s a corker. But I can’t resist quoting some of it.

The book is billed ‘A Reykjavik Murder Mystery’, and there is enough old-style detection here to make this story almost cosy, the tale of a cleverly-worked out killing. But there is nothing cosy about the heart of the novel, which is about the real way people react to death, and to loss, and the way a shutting down, or closing off, a coldness toward the world, can have intense consequences. This is one reason Hypothermia, which also presents a clue in the murder mystery, may be a better title for a book called Hardskafi in Icelandic. This is a book about emotion, about love, about loss, and about closure. It doesn’t have a ‘happy’ ending, but it has the kind of ending that reflects exactly what it is saying about life and death. Indridason has been building to this point, carefully, with his previous books, yet you don’t need to have followed them to appreciate this one. But Hypothermia will take on added resonance if you have. It is a fine novel, the best yet in a very strong series, and as I said the best I’ve read thus far this year.

Definitely on my “read as soon as possible” list.

For the lucky souls who live in or near New York City, here’s a free event you’ll want to put in your calendar:
Where Fiction & Reality Collide: Norwegian Crime Fiction Panel

Date:	Monday, October 19, 2009
Time:	7:00pm – 10:00pm
Location:	Scandinavia House
Street:	58 Park Ave (@ 38th Street)

Despite the fact that the Global Peace Index ranked Norway as the third most peaceful country in the world and the homicide rates in Norway are among the lowest on the planet, more people are murdered every year in the pages of Norwegian crime novels than are murdered in Norway itself. A panel comprised of Norwegian crime authors Kjell Ola Dahl and Anne Holt, along with Norwegian Police Counselor, Odd Malme Berner and moderator Sarah Weinman, will discuss the rise of Norwegian crime fiction.
Supported by the Royal Norwegian Consulate General in New York.

Meanwhile, on the Girl Who front, Dorte and husband give us a sneak preview of the film version of Girl With a Dragon Tattoo. I’m looking forward to the film, though the actress does not at all match my inner portrait of Lisbeth Salander. And as Dorte’s husband says, she does not appear to have Asperger’s. UPDATE: see the Bookwitch’s full review here.

This has come up before. I see from a quick “look inside” search of the first book that Bloomqvist speculates Lisbeth might have Asperger’s – because of her phenomenal memory and ability to see patterns (not that all Aspies have phenomenal skills). Of course, in the second book, many people assume Lisbeth is psychotic and illiterate – and are quite surprised to find out she’s none of the above. Somewhere in an online discussion Reg Keeland, the translator, expressed surprise at the Autism/Asperger’s assumption, but here I see someone comment at Bookwitch’s blog that Stieg Larsson confirmed she was an Aspie. And an interview with his editor also suggests Larsson had it in mind when creating the character.  So I’m not at all sure what to think. I’m not sure labels are really helpful.

If you want to read more about Asperger’s I recommend Asperger Square 8, an excellent and thought-provoking blog (including things about labels).

tell me about the rabbits, Karin

Dorte at DJ’s Krimiblog reviews Karin Fossum’s Don’t Look Back. I agree with her, it’s a terrific book and as with most of Fossum’s stories it makes you think hard about our definition of “normal.” There’s also an unsettling quality to the final pages that is very like The Water’s Edge.

Lynn Harnett reviews two second acts,  The Girl Who Played With Fire and Yrsa Sigurdarsdottir’s My Soul to Take in the Porstmouth, New Hampshire Seacoast Online. She recommends reading both Stieg Larsson books (just because) and says “Sigurdardottir’s second Thora Gudmundsdottir book evokes the long days, crisp air and craggy coast of Iceland in spring and should appeal to readers of Scandinavian mysteries who prefer a little less brooding.”

The Bookish Kitty thinks Irene Huss is a good strong female lead for a series. She reviews Helene Tursten’s The Glass Devil:

Tursten strikes a nice balance between the inspector’s work and personal life. As the mother of twin daughters who recently turned 18 and a husband who has a demanding job if his own, she has much to juggle in her life. Tursten does a good job of showing the realities of such a struggle, including the compromises that sometimes must be made.

Personal and work lives are not the only things being juggled throughout the novel. Irene Huss and her colleagues have their hands full, often short-staffed and with other cases to investigate. The author captures the necessity of teamwork in the law enforcement world, whether it be staff from the same office working together or connecting with other authorities outside of the district or even abroad.

True to its title, The Glass Devil is not always what it seems. Tursten takes the novel in unexpected and sometimes very dark directions. The wrap-up of the crime seems to be a little too pat, but it is a satisfactory ending nonetheless. This is my first, but definitely not my last, Helene Tursten novel.

Sadly, Soho will not be publishing more English translations of this series. (Barbara shakes fist in the direction of New York.)

a lovely photo and some links

Bookwich has some wonderful portraits of a great many authors including (just scroll down a bit) a good one of Henning Mankell and a very dashing one of Klas Östergren. Her account of the conversation with Mankell is charming.  And in a previous post she has a lovely photo of him:

In fact, her entire blog is so good, I don’t know why you’re not reading it right now instead of this one.

Maxine reviews Johan Theorin’s The Darkest Room which she believes deserves wide acclaim:

… the author himself is a wonderful storyteller; one becomes totally immersed in his Oland world and in the lives and personalities of the superbly well-observed characters, major and minor. He is also a great plotter – the main stories as well as the minor ones weave in and out of each other: apparently small details in one story turn out to be highly relevant in another. He also has fun with the ghost-story concept, keeping the reader guessing as to whether he’ll pull a supernatural solution out of the hat or whether he can possibly create a down-to-earth explanation for all the disparate events. There is so much that could be said about this excellent novel, packed full of subtleties and stories, but my main advice is to read it and experience it for yourself.

Karen Meek makes me eager to see the film version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, which has trimmed the slow bits and made the most of the suspenseful ones. It will be released in the UK in the spring. Meanwhile, Norm, aka Uriah, who has a review of a Wallander TV episode, The Container Lorry,  has found a club in Malmo that doesn’t allow women with visible tattoos. It doesn’t sound like Lisbeth’s scene, anyway.

Finally, Reg, aka Steven, translator of Stieg Larsson and many other authors, points to a possible precursor to Lisbeth Salander.

remember the Battle of Maldon!

Mike Ripley, who faults Johan Theorin’s The Darkest Room for its unsympathetic characters and “sheer bloody glumness” also makes time to criticize publishers for jumping aboard the bandwagon and readers of the “chattering classes” who embrace translations-  and translators who don’t embrace the genre they’re translating. Not one to hide his feelings, he also admits to being still a bit sore about the Battle or Maldon (back in 991 – how time flies). But now Maxine, bristling at the one-two punch of criticism of Euro Crime’s editing (not censoring) of a previous Ripster review and that “chattering classes” tag, strikes back in an open letter at Petrona.

I confess that I am one of those who in recent years have discovered novels by authors such as Maj Sjowall/Per Wahloo, Johan Theorin, Helene Tursten, Liza Marklund, Asa Larsson, Stieg Larsson, Anne Holt, Kjell Ericksson, Yrsa Sigurdadottir, Ake Edwardson, Inger Frimansson, Camilla Lackberg, Karin Fossum, Hakan Nesser, Arnaldur Indridason, Jo Nesbo and others from the Scandinavian region. Before then, I had thought these countries’ entire crime-fiction output was written by Henning Mankell. While many (but not all) of these books are admittedly not primarily exciting, action-packed thrillers, most are either variants on the traditional police-procedural, or rely on a combination of character dynamics, atmosphere and a sense of place to hold reader interest. Some are even funny.

She goes on to describe how much she enjoys crime fiction from other parts of the world – including the US and UK – and defends her own independence as a reader: “I’m a reasonably well-read, old and broadly educated person, so while my enthusiasm for Nordic noir may certainly be considered strange, it isn’t copy-cat, vacuous or jejune.” Though as she signs off as “Confessed reading addict – with a confessed current bias towards Scandinavia” and “Confessed admirer of Mike Ripley” it’s a good bet that those maces and pikes with which they’re going at it are tipped with a coating of irritable humor.

Norm (aka Uriah) reviews Theorin’s The Darkest Room and doesn’t not find it glum.

This brilliant novel is part ghost story, part detective story, and a really gripping thriller. The book reads as if written in English so translator Marlaine Delargy has done a very good job. The human characters are all well drawn but the island of Oland and its folklore are the dominating characters . . . This is a beautifully constructed story with all the various threads and layers interwoven so cleverly, but as with most good crime fiction nothing is quite as it seems and there are some unseen and unexpected twists at the end. This is without doubt one of the best crime fiction books I have read in 2009.

Margaret Cannon reviews The Girl Who Played With Fire for the Globe and Mail, adding to the enthusiasm.

Tim Cornwell in The Scotsman interviews Henning Mankell who is in Edinburgh to talk about Italian Shoes (which isn’t a mystery) but he’s much more interested in the upcoming publication of The Troubled Man, billed as the final Wallander mystery.

More on Wallander on the Tube – Glenn Harper at International Crime Fiction discusses The Tricksters (far from perfect but “enjoyable enough TV-crime-show fare”) and Norm reviews The Photographer and hopes we see other television as well, such as the Irene Huss series. (Yes, please!)

And Norm also has a nice tribute to humor as it is used in Scandinavian crime.

reviews and comparisons

Marilyn Stasio provides reviews of The Girl Who Played With Fire and Karin Fossum’s The Water’s Edge. She advises impatient readers to cut to the chase and skip the first 124 pages of Girl, when the story really starts, and admires Fossum’s ability to examine every character touched by a crime with humanity in this “exceptionally fine story.”

At Euro Crime, Maxine reviews Ake Edwardson’s Frozen Tracks, the third Erik Winter novel to be translated though it is the sixth in the series. (The first will be published in a couple of months.) This is a very long book – over 500 pages – but she finds it overall a satisfying procedural involving two seemingly unrelated sets of events.

I managed to miss an interesting review posted last month by crimeficreader of Yrsa Sigurdarsdottir’s second novel, My Soul To Take. She thinks there hasn’t been much accomplished in the character development department from the first in the series, but finds it the plotting and tone to be very successful:

There are so many red herrings it’s like being asked to locate the one whitebait in a fish market.  Sigurðardóttir doesn’t just wrong foot the reader, she has you in the wrong footwear to deal with the terrain.  We again have the dark balanced with the light, pulled off in a rather unique and skilful way.  Watch out for a sex therapist and her tools of the trade as this element covers both those aspects.

If that isn’t a hook, I don’t know what is.

And finally – Seamus Scanlon, a guest on Declan Burke’s Crime Always Pays blog, offers an overview of the “Story of Crime” – an overarching title for the Martin Beck series by Maj Swowall and Per Wahloo. The ten books are “all written with aplomb and honesty and set the standard for all police procedurals that followed.” The Swedish series is able to write about crime and society in a way that reflects the authors’ Marxist views without becoming overly didactic.

Scanlon mentions a debt owed to Ed McBain’s 87th Precinct series; in fact, the athors translated McBain into Swedish, but weren’t yet familiar with his work when they started writing about Martin Beck and his colleagues. This seems more like a Liebnitz/Newton moment, when people in two countries working with similar materials happened to invent something very similar – calculus and the Hogarthian police procedural that reflects the urban experinece in all its grimy glory – at roughly the same time. (McBain started his series nearly a decade before Roseanna was published.)

Scanlon also points out the ways in which Mankell and those who followed him into the crime writing trenches owe a debt to Sjowall and Wahloo. “Mankell’s Inspector Wallander, an existential warrior battling crime and his own melancholia, closely resembles Beck.” But that suggests a tonal similarity that, I think, is not entirely true. Martin Beck would probably be taken aback to be called a “warrior” and while he has a dose of melancholia (as well as frequent colds) the books themselves are hardly gloomy – they’re shot through with humor and irony. Which is another way in which they resemble McBain more than Mankell.

This photo from Flickr’s Creative Commons pool was taken by Jickel, who comments “The tape seems to be the kind the police use to mark out crime scenes.”