The Girl Who Made Friends Around the World

I have not yet come up with a theory that accounts for the popularity of Lisbeth Salander – given that very few people publicly indentify themselves as feminists these days (thinking for some reason that’s all over and done with) and given that bixsexuality, hacking, and anti-social behavior are not on the Approved List of popular plot developments, not to mention that leftist crusading these days tends to be seen through a glass ironically – but she has done something that, if she actually existed, would astonish the hell out of her. She has had an incredible number of people in a great many countries fall in love with her.

Maxine sums up her reviews of the three books in one spoiler-free blog post.

Kerrie reviews Hornets’ Nest at  Mysteries in Paradise, and won’t say much for fear of spoilers (other than read them all in order) but does point out:

For me, Larsson’s women’s rights agenda was stronger in this novel than in the other two. Right from the beginning we have an image of Salander as some sort of warrior. The opening paragraphs tell us about the six hundred women who served in the American Civil War, and then later we are reminded of the Amazons, and then the women’s army that existed among the Fon of Dahomey. It is hard not to see Advokat Annika Giannini, Salander’s lawyer in this role too. She turns out to be a courtroom lion whom the proecutors severely underestimate.

The other theme that comes through strong and clear is the power of the press to make or break a government, and even more the role/duty of a journalist to seacrh out the truth.

Other assessments of the third in the trilogy:

Bernadette’s Reactions to Reading – “The book is brimming with positive female characters who can look after themselves as well as many men who go out of their way to right the wrongs they have seen done around them. . . . a complex, unpredictable book that wears its liberal heart proudly on its sleeve.”

DJ’s Krimiblog – “Larsson does not try to hide his agenda: he wants to do more than write a crime story, this time by adding short sections about amazons, women who voluntarily leave the kitchen in order to fight.”

Norm’s (aka Uriah’s) posts his final assessment at Crime Scraps, describing the complexity and sophistication of the third volume and his own journey from “skeptic to fanatic.”

At the Guardian, Roy Greenslade says that journalists love the trilogy because they are about the excitement (and the challenges) of getting the news; they’d all secretly like to be the crusading Mikael Blomqvist.

And finally, an Australian appreciation by Brian Toohey that compares the book to Henry Porter’s The Dying Light, saying both authors kick the hornets’ nest (while Toohey takes the opportunity to kick a few Australian politicians in the process). Toohey thinks there’s some truth in Larsson’s ficiton . . . and perhaps some fantasy:

Larsson, who died in 2004 before the novels were published, spent many years as a journalist observing Swedish politics at close quarters. Of course, as works of fiction the books don’t necessarily reflect political reality in Sweden. Nevertheless, some aspects of the latest novel are based on fact.

Just as in the novel, Cold War–era prime ministers allowed the Swedish intelligence services to conceal an unofficial unit that violated the civil liberties of innocent citizens in the name of national security. . . . [but considering his treatment of present-day events] it is difficult for the outsider to judge the plausibility or otherwise of Larsson’s portrayal of a prime minister and his justice minister who genuinely want to unearth wrongdoing in the security services. Similar considerations apply to the depiction of a unit that really does exist within the Security Police – the Directorate of Constitutional Protection. In Larsson’s account the unit’s staff work with unswerving dedication to ensure that their colleagues in another section are arrested on criminal charges. It is even less clear to an outsider whether Larsson is being impossibly romantic when he predicts that a huge public scandal would erupt if the prime minister failed to nail those who mistreated a fractious thirteen-year-old.

That’s an unusual perspective: that Larsson may have been too kind to public officials and been too ready to believe some of them would want to do the right thing.

Obviously I’ll have to read this book myself and see what I think.

 

the story of a crime redux

Maxine points us toward an interview with Maj Sjowall, who with Per Wahloo wrote the ten-book Martin Beck series. It details their collaboration and their relationship, as well as the sad death of Wahloo at an early age. He was just able to finish the final book in the series that they planned together, one that would chronicle their disillusionment with the Swedish state, with the ten books together telling an overarching “story of a crime” which was “society’s abandonment of the working classes.”

We wanted to describe society from our left point of view. Per had written political books, but they’d only sold 300 copies. We realised that people read crime and through the stories we could show the reader that under the official image of welfare-state Sweden there was another layer of poverty, criminality and brutality. We wanted to show where Sweden was heading: towards a capitalistic, cold and inhuman society, where the rich got richer, the poor got poorer.

And she feels they charted the direction things were going accurately. “”Everything we feared happened, faster. People think of themselves not as human beings but consumers. The market rules and it was not that obvious in the 1960s, but you could see it coming.” When asked whether the project failed she laughs. “It failed. Of course it did. The problem was that the people who read our books already thought the same as us. Nothing changed – we changed our lives, that’s all.” Though they may not have changed society, they did change the course of crime fiction.

Sjowall lives modestly and though she continues to earn some money from royalties, she says she can’t afford a car and doesn’t mind because she’s happy with her life and feels unencumbered. One can’t help contrast her seeming contentment with the nasty squabble over the proceeds of Stieg Larsson’s estate.

It’s quite a touching and informative interview that benefits from the interviewer’s great fondness for the Martin Beck series.

“we ignore the wider world at our peril”

Yrsa Sigurdardottir makes her first contribution to a group blog with an international flavor and charms everyone with her modesty and humor. She says,

If you are wondering what country I do call home, imagine a tiny island way up north where the only banking institution not humiliated and disgraced is the national blood bank. If this does not help, imagine a country obviously named by someone intent on keeping people out. If still at loss, imagine a war with no prisoners and absolutely no opportunity of placing landmines as it was fought at sea, on fishing boats, over cod. There will be no more clues.

But a commenter adds some additional hints:

It’s also a country with the oldest parliamentary system in western europe–and probably the longest continuous one in the world. It’s a country that keeps adding to its territory without war. And it’s a country with one of the most moving collections of epic literature, poetry and prose.

To which she charmingly responds “true, true and thank you for reminding me. Lately it has all been doom and gloom despite this being a great country, I needed the reminder.”

Maxine, at her Petrona blog, has a wonderful blog post about Stieg Larsson, recapping some articles and quoting from an e-mail message that Larsson sent to his publisher in which he said,

I’ve tried to create main characters who are drastically different from the types who generally appear in crime novels. Mikael Blomkvist, for instance, doesn’t have ulcers, or booze problems or an anxiety complex. He doesn’t listen to operas, nor does he have an oddball hobby such as making model aeroplanes. He doesn’t have any real problems, and his main characteristic is that he acts like a stereotype ‘slut’, as he admits himself. I’ve also changed the sex roles on purpose: in many ways Blomkvist acts like a typical “bimbo”, while Lisbeth Salander has stereotype ‘male’ characteristics and values…..

The article that Maxine links to by Val McDermid is well worth a read. In “The Man Who Died Too Soon,” she concludes,

It’s a tribute to Larsson’s skill that he never allows his political concerns to dominate his desire to tell a cracking good story packed with dramatic incident and brimming with quirky insights. But without his personal commitment to taking a stand in support of what he believed in, I’m convinced these three novels could never have had so powerful an impact among readers.

Forty years ago, with their Martin Beck novels, the Swedish writers Sjöwall and Wahlöö blazed a trail that proved the crime novel provides the perfect vehicle to write stories that shine a critical light on the society we live in. Stieg Larsson demonstrated that this works just as well for present-day concerns, and his example should give aspiring writers the confidence to put their own beliefs at the heart of their work. Books like The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest remind us all that we ignore the wider world at our peril.

Glen Harper at International Noir Fiction reviews Gunnar Staalesen’s The Consorts of Death (and promises to say more about the Norwegian television series):

Staalesen shows great skill in keeping a very complex story coherent: characters and events weave in and out, with personal and metaphorical connections among them all along the way. There are some surpises at the end, as well, when Varg finally discovers what’s been going on in the several murders and in Johnny Boy’s life. Staalesen’s novels take on social issues, but there are many passages in this book that are right out of classic noir (though Varg isn’t the usual noir hero, he has too much hope for his clients’ fates). There’s a lot more Varg Veum in Norwegian, and I for one hope for translators and publishers to fill in the gaps in what has been translated.

There’s an article in The Prospect about the Stieg Larsson phenomenon that seems peculiarly off-base in almost every particular. The author says the Sweden portrayed in crime fiction “is the modern equivalent of the library in the country house of classic English detective stories: the conventional stage in which to find corpses surrounded by a selection of intriguing and sinister eccentrics. . . . The crimes are all solved by amateurs, and usually the punishment is dealt out by amateurs too.” Salander is a witch, and Blomqvist is “Philip Marlowe without the failures or the inner life.” He considers Sjowall and Wahloo as part of the same fantasy genre, and refers (quite snidely) to the “domestic Swedish detective novel, which Scandinavia women journalists in their thirties write instead of chicklit.” My favorite comment on this article comes from a friend at the FriendFeed  Crime and Mystery Fiction room, who feels the author was “jumping on a bandwagon and driving it into the nearest vacant column inches.” Really, it’s difficult to compete with the depth of knowledge and the sheer wit of the residents of this online community.

*The country in question is Iceland, if you haven’t guessed.

reviews and Hitchens on Larsson

Rhapsody in Books reviews The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest and gives it high marks as the best of the trilogy – and gives it a thematic tag: women warriors (which struck me as interesting right after reading a recent installment of Unshelved which is about a book of women warriors who are kind of scary but can provide a leadership lesson of sorts …)

Peter reviews Arnaldur Indridason’s Hypothermia, which he considers “the best novel so far in one of the best modern crime fiction series. A lovely book.”

Maxine’s review of Gunnar Staalesen’s The Consorts of Death has appeared at Eurocrime and says that, though most of the books in the series have not been translated and there are huge gaps between the volumes available in English, this is a fitting introduction to the main character, Varg Veum, since it provides his back story.

Norm has finished reading Hornets’ Nest and has plenty to say about the book and the entire trilogy.

And just as Stieg Larsson’s books are cropping up on “best of” lists, Christopher Hitchens offers a substantial appreciation (if that’s what it is … you can never quite tell with Hitchens) of Stieg Larsson’s Millennnium Trilogy, its author, and the neo-fascist movement in Sweden in the page of Vanity Fair. No, this Sweden is not the pacific and “herbivore” nation we imagine. And these stories are not heroic sagas, but modern and bleak.

Larsson is very much of our own time, setting himself to confront questions such as immigration, “gender,” white-collar crime, and, above all, the Internet. The plot of his first volume does involve a sort of excursion into antiquity—into the book of Leviticus, to be exact—but this is only for the purpose of encrypting a “Bible code.” And he is quite deliberately unromantic, giving us shopping lists, street directions, menus, and other details—often with their Swedish names—in full. The villains are evil, all right, but very stupid and self-thwartingly prone to spend more time (this always irritates me) telling their victims what they will do to them than actually doing it. There is much sex but absolutely no love, a great deal of violence but zero heroism. . . .  Bleakness is all. That could even be the secret—the emotionless efficiency of Swedish technology, paradoxically combined with the wicked allure of the pitiless elfin avenger, plus a dash of paranoia surrounding the author’s demise. If Larsson had died as a brave martyr to a cause, it would have been strangely out of keeping; it’s actually more satisfying that he succumbed to the natural causes that are symptoms of modern life.

can’t get no instant gratification

Books to the Ceiling (what a charming image) has a thorough and thoughtful review and appreciation of Karin Fossum’s The Water’s Edge.

Bernadette reacts to Don’t Look Back, also by Karin Fossum. This is the first in the Sejer and Skarre series, but you don’t have to read them in order. Both books have the same quiet but intense suspense that comes from the slow fuse smoldering in a very believable situation. “Without car chases or guns blazing,” Bernadette says, “the story managed to be suspense-filled and captivating from beginning to end as Sejer and Skarre teased out important details about village life from its inhabitants . . . Don’t Look Back has all the things I love most in crime fiction: interesting, believable characters, a puzzle-like plot, a setting I can get lost in and a tangible credibility that sometime somewhere that exact scenario has played itself out in reality. Or will one day.”

Norm (aka Uriah) has been trying to put off reading the last chapters of The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest because, well, they are the last. Period.

And Harvill Secker will release an e-book version of Henning Mankell’s The Man From Beijing before they release the hardcover. The prices will be the same, though – no deep discount  for the e-book as Amazon has been doing.

I find myself wondering about the old practice of expecting people (in the US, at least – not sure what the practice is in the UK) to wait a year for a relatively inexpensive  paperback edition of a book to be published. That once made some kind of sense; it was generally timed to promote a new hardcover title of the same author. If you wouldn’t pop full hardcover price, you could indulge in the mass market younger sibling. But books have a notoriously short shelf life (Michael Korda said it was shorter than yogurt many years ago – it’s certainly no longer now) and inexpensive editions are available online almost immediately because of the ubiquitous used book market. When to release the e-book is a new dilemma – early on, for early adopters? A few weeks later, so traditional booksellers will have a slight edge, briefly? From the reader’s perspective, it would make much more sense to have a choice of formats right away. I know a lot of older readers whose wrists hurt if they have to hold a hardcover. I, on the other hand, don’t much like mass market because I have to wrestle the books to stay open and the type is often too small. Then again, a lot of new books are being released in trade paper only, which annoys people who are serious about buying books. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to have not only a format choice, but a price-point that suits you? Right now?

Telling consumers to wait a year to have a choice of formats seems unlikely to be sustainable in an era of purchasing songs one at a time,  Tivo-ing your television so you aren’t tied to a network’s schedule, and streaming films to your computer just as soon as the popcorn has popped. Maybe it’s time to give readers some control over their timing and preferences, too.  Really, wouldn’t it be wise to make your audience happy? Right now?

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.