Bits and Pieces

Profmike reads Jo Nesbo’s Nemesis and pronounces it well worth the read. “What Jo Nesbo has also done – very cleverly, in my opinion  – is to introduce a larger, overarching narrative that spans across the series of Harry Hole novels. . . . This is writing that is far more complex that it at first seems, extremely readable, combining old-fashioned structures and the steady hand of the popular novelist with more contemporary perspectives and sensibilities.”

Becky, who reads A Book a Week, thinks Arnaldur Indridason has scored a hit. “I always like mysteries that are about something else besides the mystery. The Draining Lake is about a lot more than just who is the dead guy at the bottom of the lake. That’s why I think it’s the best Indriðason book I’ve read. He’s really hitting his stride as a mystery craftsman and as a novelist.”

Mark Rose at Bookasm thinks Johan Theorin’s Echoes from the Dead works very well and is a good example of the region’s crime fiction. “Some universal memes exist that seem to exemplify Scandinavian mystery fiction: They are all ineffably sad, they all seem to focus on domestic mysteries with crime close to home, there is a ton of self-contemplative navel gazing, and they’re not afraid to use less-than-glamorous characters as our main focal points.” (Hmm . . . one could also argue that Scandinavian mysteries are as likely to examine social issues as they are domestic crimes – if one can generalize at all. I wouldn’t say, for example, that Helene Tursten or Hakan Nesser write sad books . . .)

And finally . . . do you Facebook? Then join the new group, Fans of Scandinavian Crime Novels. And if you simply want to keep up with crime fiction from all over, check out the Crime and Mystery Fiction room at FriendFeed – thanks owed to Maxine Clarke for setting it up.

Not Just By Armchair

Petrona (aka Maxine Clarke) picked up on a recent Times travel piece on visiting Wallander’s Sweden that includes some gems (along with a great many recommendations on where to eat; mmm, I’m hungry…)

Some 15% of residents of Ystad have appeared in filmed versions of Henning Mankell’s series.

Ystad has had only one murder in seven years, but its fictional doppelganger has had over 100 murders in a similar period of time.

Wallander has a earned a clever nickname in England: Inspector Norse.

The new BBC production was filmed on site and is authentically Swedish, except for the pronunciation of its main character’s name.

Though the adjective “gloomy” is commonly used in reviews of Scandinavian crime fiction, the travel piece makes this part of Sweden sound quite attractive. Ystad has “a unique blend of sleepy civility and bleak splendour” and its beaches, wildflowers, and “sand forests” attract artists.

Botswana might not have appealed as a tourist destination until readers were entranced by Alexander McCall Smith’s version. One wonders just how much the tourism industry benefits from mystery readers.

photo courtesy of Jolantis

. . . And Not to Be Missed . . .

Maxine Clarke reviews Last Rituals by Icelandic author Yrsa Sigurdardottir at Euro Crime and finds it a gripping tale with an appealing heroine.

LAST RITUALS is an ‘academic mystery’: that is, the crime takes place in a university department (a student is murdered), and the solution depends on the uncovering and understanding of the victim’s research, as well as of the broader mores, religion and witchcraft in medieval Europe. Yet the book is by no means heavy-going; the opposite in fact. LAST RITUALS is an assured novel, ably translated by the late Bernard Scudder. I recommend it very highly. . . .

Thora is an attractive heroine: she’s practical, capable and intelligent as well as having a dry sense of humour and an enquiring mind. Her domestic concerns are real enough, interesting and vivid, but without dominating the book. She’s curious about everything: I particularly liked her encouragement of the pathologist who did Harald’s autopsy to describe the molecular basis of muscle contraction. The description he provides is a little gem of knowledge. Similar examples are provided economically, accurately but not intrusively throughout the book – for example when a museum curator remarks in passing: “As a rule, people don’t know anything: they can’t even tell a revenant from a poltergeist.”

Incidentally, Karen Meek, the irresistible force behind the Euro Crime site, has announced that some expat North Americans and others will now be welcomed to the fold. The site will now “include those authors, though not born in Europe, who have a strong association with European crime fiction” – such as Donna Leon. May the sun never set on Euro Crime.

Among the Missing

Sarah Weinman’s latest Dark Passages column in the LA Times gives a nod to Johan Theorin’s Echoes from the Dead in an exploration of missing children as a theme in crime fiction. She has rounded up quite a library of loss. But it’s not surprising that so emotional a subject inspires so many stories: “a missing-person tale carries the weight of a dissonant chord perpetually unresolved but, as some of the most indelible novels of the last few years demonstrate, also presents a wide swath of color and tone rife for exploration from an array of vantage points.”

Odds & Ends

Karen Meek points out a double interview by Auntie Beeb of Henning Mankell and Kenneth Branagh, the British actor whose portrayal of Kurt Wallander will begin running in the UK on November 30th. (North America: eat your heart out.)

The filming was done in Sweden. According to Branagh, “It is absolutely right that we came to shoot in Sweden as they have a different relationship to the landscape. People are much more aware of what the environment can do to you in sometimes a bleakish landscape and in that kind of atmosphere it is a really good place for drama.”

Mankell says of the setting, “The town of Ystad, where my books are set, is like the Texas of Sweden, in that it runs along the border. I feel that in border countries there is a special dynamism that I use in my stories.”

I am late in linking to the news that was posted to Crime Scraps when it was hot off the press. Uriah lists the nominees for the annual mystery prizes in Sweden. Among them are some names familiar to English-speaking audiences: Asa Larsson and Johan Theorin. Less familiar are Arne Dahl and Elisabeth Gilek. Up for the Martin Beck award are John LeCarre, Deon Myer, Maria Schenkel, and Peter Temple.

Uriah also recaps a lively Stieg Larsson debate that has been bubbling in the cauldrons of 4MA. Ali and Norm may not see eye to eye on Larsson, but at least agree on the brilliance of Arnaldur Indridason and Johan Theorin.

And at the WaPo, Maureen Corrigan reviews Arnaldur’s The Draining Lake – and says, apropos of Dave Zelterzman’s new book,

I don’t know about you, but with the world in financial free fall I don’t feel like reading comic mysteries or cozies or even espionage thrillers. I don’t want escapism. I long to immerse myself in literature that captures the all-encompassing anxiety of the times. There’s only one type of mystery that fits that profile, and that’s crime noir: the jittery genre, born during the Great Depression, about saps and grifters who ain’t gotta barrel of money and just can’t get a break; the genre about a world gone wrong and the greedy bumblers who made it so.

And she wonders, as many of us have done, whether Iceland’s financial disaster will provide a plot for Inspector Erlendur. In a sense, he already has commented on it. Before the fall, he viewed Iceland’s new wealth with suspicion and was unhappy with the way all that money was distorting traditional Icelandic values. I’m sure the banks’ comeuppance will provide the gloomy detective with a small “I told you so” pleasure.

Celebrity and the Book World

National Public Radio’s Morning Edition traces the route The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo took as it found it’s way (finally) to the US market. Here, authors are part time salesmen (or are they part time writers?) and Knopf had to consider ways to market the book without that star appeal. They first wooed booksellers, hoping for massive orders to send a message. They placed an ad in the New York Times book review promising to give away copies to anyone who asked (which might have dismayed those booksellers who placed orders, but maybe I just don’t understand these things) and they rode the wave of bloggers already talking the book up. Result – even without the celebrity appearances, the book made it to the bestseller list. And this is a book that doesn’t have the page-turning action of most US bestsellers. It’s a rambling, thoughtful, character-driven, complex novel about family dynamics and misogyny.

A lot of books get a big marketing push. It doesn’t guarantee a spot on the charts. Maybe there’s a lesson here – the real star appeal is found in the book itself.

Hat tip to Sarah Weinman.

Ali on Arnaldur Indridason

There’s a warm appreciation of the work of Icelandic author Arnaldur Indridason over at The Rap Sheet. Actually, Ali Karim is to crime fiction criticism as Vindaloo is to Indian cuisine. He isn’t just warm, he’s hot! hot! hot!

For me, [Boucercon 2008] was a magical moment to speak with a novelist whose wonderfully melancholic fiction has haunted me over the last few years–ever since that CWA awards ceremony, in fact. Right after that event, I bought Indridason’s first English-translated novel, Jar City (aka Tainted Blood), to find out what all the fuss was about. It turned out to be one of the greatest police procedurals I’ve ever read. Jar City introduces a captivating trio of investigators, led by Reykjavik Detective Inspector Erlendur Sveinsson but also featuring criminology graduate Sigurdur Óli and policewoman Elínborg. In Jar City, those three go hunting for the murderer of an old man named Holberg. But the yarn is not as simple as that, because Holberg was an evil man, with a legacy of harming many people within his insular community. Jar City, I should note in passing, is also one of the saddest and bleakest novels I’ve ever read.

Indridason’s subsequent works–including Arctic Chill (2008), The Draining Lake (2007), and Voices (2006)–have been quite brilliant, too. But like my first kiss, I still recall Jar City most vividly and fondly. It is one of the few books that actually made me cry.

Ali also has done us the favor of pointing out an article on Icelandic crime fiction in the Iceland Review – some of which is available online. It notes that seven of ten most circulated books at the Icelandic national library are by Arnaldur Indridason.

A Roundup of Reviews

Tom Nolan of The Wall Street Journal thinks highly of Arndaldur Indridason’s The Draining Lake, “a book as subtle and moving as it is suspenseful.” But his opening reminds me of how jarring it is to have this series tagged as “”Reykjavik Thrillers.” Though I find the books exhileratingly good, it seems silly to classify them as thrillers, given their sublte structure, well-developed characters, and unapologetic realism.

Peter Rozovsky considers the same book, commenting on the way the Icelandic setting plays into the book, as well as the propensity of Scandinavian crime fiction writers to delve into the past for their mysteries.

Uriah, meanwhile, praises the lasting power of Sjowall and Wahloo’s Martin Beck series, give a thumb’s up to Paradise by Liza Marklund. And he notes a peculiarity of one of her photoshopped covers.

And catching up belatedly with posts at International Noir Fiction, Glen Harper reviews Henning Mankell’s collection of short stories, The Pyramid, “a fitting sequel or prequel, depending on whether you think of it as the first or last of the series.”