Allison Flood of the Guardian points out that Scandinavian crime fiction is making waves (does her surname lead to nautical metaphors?), topping European bestseller lists. Stieg Larsson, not too surprisingly, takes first place. Micheal Carlson finds the study an Irresistible Target. The number of Swedes on the list is striking; so is the paucity of English (UK and US) titles, but Carlson points out that both J.K. Rowling and Stephanie Meyer would have vied for second place except they’re not writing for adults. Peter also comments at his Nordic Bookblog.
Two Scandinavian mysteries are included on Booklist’s list of best debuts of the year – Tim Davys’s Amberville (“everything works in Davys’ surprisingly metaphysical take on some classic crime-fiction tropes. The publisher describes it as The Big Sleep meets Animal Farm, and frankly, we can’t do any better than that”) and Johann Theorin’s Echoes from the Dead (“Theorin skillfully uses dramatic irony to draw the reader into the story. Sweden landed on the crime-fiction map with Henning Mankell’s procedurals, but Marie Jungstedt, Asa Larsson, and now Theorin have added psychological thrillers to the mix. “) There’s also a hard-boiled gazeteer entry – this time for Latin America.
It must be spring. News and reviews are springing up all over.
The Seattle Times notices the allure of scruffy Scandinavian detectives as Lit Life editor Mary Ann Gwin previews the Branagh Wallander, soon to appear in the US, and interrogates J.B. Dickey, owner of the Seattle Mystery Bookstore.
Glenn Harper of International Noir reviews Camilla Läckberg’s The Preacher – “Part Cain and Abel, part Elmer Gantry.” And a touch of Maeve Binchy in the family dynamics. He finds it’s a northern sort of Southern Gothic.
Maxine reviews Karin Alvtegen’s Missingand recommends you clear your calendar to read it all in one go. It’s “a tensely exciting book with an extremely sympathetic and capable main character.” Alvtegen has been touring the US in advance of the Edgar awards banquet on April 30th. Missing is up for an award, having finally been published in the US.
Marilyn Stasio of the New York Times advises that “writers write about dull subjects at their peril.” Yet Hakan Nesser’s Woman With a Birthmarkpulls it off, turning the murder of a very dull man into a compelling story.
In the annual mystery issue ofLibrary Journal Wilda Williams speculates that US publisher’s infatuation with Scandinavian crime may be cooling off.
Poisoned Pen Press editor Barbara Peters believes the globalization of crime fiction has become a permanent feature of the mystery world. The question today is whether chilly, Nordic thrillers will continue to appeal to American readers seeking to escape their domestic troubles. The verdict so far is mixed.
“We’ve only seen the popularity of Scandinavian crime writers grow since the initial U.S. media frenzy hit in the early 2000s,” says Picador senior publicist Lisa Mondello Fielack. She notes that Icelandic author Arnaldur Indridason continues to do well for the paperback imprint especially after the movie of his Jar City became the highest-grossing film in Iceland’s history. An American remake now in the works may stir further reader interest.
Fielack argues that as new writers such as Stieg Larsson (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) enter the mix, the Scandinavian crime pool only seems to have grown stronger. Out this month are Håkan Nesser’s Woman with a Birthmark (Pantheon), Yrsa Sigurdardóttir’s My Soul To Take (Morrow), and Inger Frimansson’s Island of the Naked Women (Pleasure Boat). Larsson’s second novel in his acclaimed trilogy, The Girl Who Played with Fire (Knopf), debuts in August. In October, Sarah Crichton Books/FSG will publish Box 21, a Swedish thriller by Börge Hellström and Anders Roslund. Even suspense juggernaut James Patterson is catching the Nordic crime wave by partnering with Swedish crime writer Liza Marklund (The Bomber, LJ 5/1/01) on a thriller set in Stockholm (to be published in 2010 in Sweden).
Other publishers, however, think the field has been saturated. “Our Scandinavian titles received rave reviews in the past, but sales have decreased,” comments Grand Central Publishing assistant editor Celia Johnson. “With any mystery book, the challenge is to produce something that stands out in a crowded marketplace.”
My question: why a remake of Jar City? I haven’t even seen the original one yet.
“Swedish Crime Queens and the Economics of Popular Culture,” Sara Kärrholm, Lund University
“Swedish Crime Fiction and (the Lack of) Science,” Kerstin Bergman, Lund University
“Crime Tourism and the Branding of Places: An Expanding Market in Sweden,” Carina Sjöholm, Lund University
“Out of Place: Geographical Fiction(s) in Håkan Nesser’s Inspector Van Veeteren Series,” Jennifer Jenkins, Pacific Lutheran University
Hat tip to Janet Rudolph for this lovely video about Iceland, Yrsa Sigurdardottir, and My Soul to Take.
Glenn Harper has a review of Inger Frimansson’s Island of the Naked Women, concluding “Frimansson’s palette has deepened and broadened.” It involves a few of the characters from her previous books, but only tangentially. This novel is darker, more psychological, and less Gothic than her previous work, dealing with residents of an island where in the past women who had been accused of adultery were left without clothing or food to die. It has a cast of characters who are not likeable, but who evoke empathy.
Titus is a literary writer who has recently published a succesful crime novel and is having difficulty coming up with a sequel. He has returned to the family farm to help out when his father has been injured in a fall. Titus hasn’t lived on the farm since his Icelandic mother ran off with another man, taking Titus with her. The father’s now-partner Sabina (in the past we would have said common-law wife) is about Titus’s age has a learning-disabled adult son, Adam, with a talent for singing Elvis songs, a talent encouraged by a Hardy, a handyman with an attitude and a shady past. Ingelize, a former schoolmate of Titus’s, offers him a part-time job working with horses, along with a cabin where he could write in solitude. Even at the start, the scenario suggests betrayal and tragedy. . . . The story presents effectively the ease with which murder may occur and the immense consequences that can ensue, both literal and psychological.
Interesting how many Swedish novels of late have been set on islands: Johan Theorin’s Oland, Stieg Larsson’s island mystery in Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Camilla Lackberg’s Fjällbacka . . . maybe no man is an island, but an island might be a good place to hear the bell toll.
It’s as Norwegian a celebration as Syttende Mai – when Easter rolls around, it’s time to curl up with a mystery or three. According to the website for the Norwegian Emabassy in the UK,
Along with Easter eggs and skiing, a third Norwegian tradition over this holiday is, believe it or not, crime! No, the Norwegians don’t run around robbing strangers or break into their neighbours’ houses, but they do love to watch a bit of murder mysteries on TV or read the latest crime fiction.
It’s been a long tradition for Norwegians to wrap up warm in the sofa after a long day of skiing to watch the annual crime series on TV which normally run on the major networks over a few nights during the Easter week. The series are the talk of the town and keep viewers on the edge of their seats each night, and come Easter Monday the murders have been solved and the holiday is over.
As if the blood-shed on TV wasn’t enough, Norwegians also love reading crime fiction over the holiday period. Old books get their revival and new crime fiction novels shoot to the top of the best-seller charts.
The article goes on to make some suggestions – books by Pernille Rygg, Kjersti Scheen, Jo Nesbø, Anne Holt, and Karin Fossum. You can find more reviews (and more Norwegian crime writers whose works have been translated into English) here, here, and here. God påske!
Sunnie wonders what’s up in Scandinavia that leads to such a large concentration of crime fiction writers. Is it the long winters that give time for imaginations to churn? Whatever the cause, she recommends Arnaldur Indridason’s Arctic Chill. It’s “a very solid police procedural indeed. But he has done much more than that. He also explores the issues of immigration and racism. Indridason also strikes a nice balance between the work of the detectives and their lives outside of their work.”
Peter Guttridge thinks Yrsa Sigurdardóttir’s My Soul to Take is a winner – “both frightening and funny – a terrific trick if you can pull it off.”
This could easily have been a hardboiled thriller about politics and international crime, but Anne Holt has turned it into a story about human beings, especially by virtue of her engaging descriptions of some outstanding women. “We women and our damned secrets, she thought. Why is it like this? Why do we feel shame whether we have a reason or not? Where does it come from, this oppressing feeling of carrying around guilt?”
DJ goes on to say this is a book is one that fits her current “crime for all” project, a fascinating examination of femikrimi and machocrimi (themes at her blog for February and March) and books that are not specifically geared to men or women but appeal across the board (April’s theme). It has been a fascinating discussion – and one that has me thinking in new ways about books I’m reading. Some seem very deliberately pitched to a single sex by either emphasizing lots of action, large trucks, and explosions or by dwelling almost entirely on interpersonal relationships, sometimes with female leads who are either highly vulnerable and unable to protect themselves (as a rather lame ratchet for suspense) or dithering about romantic relationships (leading to book-shaped dents in my walls).
It seems to me that a lot of Scandinavian crime fiction manages to emphasize both relationships and a kind of tough-minded realism, a balance that sees crime itself as a manifestation of social relationships, an emphasis that goes back to Sjowall and Wahloo. And that’s most likely one of the reasons I find it so satisfying.
Crime for all – including the best impulses of the feminist turn in crime fiction from the late 70s – early 80s. Works for me!
Uriah (aka Norm) reviews Jo Nesbo’s Redeemer – “absolutely superb crime fiction” – which I am eager to read.
Peter Rozovsky comments on the music references in Redeemer, and what they say about change in a detective character who is maturing. He also points to an earlier instance of a music reference demonstrating how very funny some Scandinavian writers can be.
And if you think stuffed animals for characters was a one-off aberation in Scandinavian crime fiction which is otherwise straightforward realism, Karen Meek of Euro Crime points out a forthcoming translation of Unfun by Matias Faldbakken. The summary bears repeating:
Using the dramaturgy of the rape/revenge flicks of the Seventies as a framework for his narrative, Faldbakken cooks up a grotesquely hilarious and challenging story about the crew around the online slasher game ”Deathbox”, at the center of which are the ’violence intellectual’ Slaktus and his former girlfriend and victim Lucy, an anarchist who embodies the horror film’s Final Girl trope. Problematizing concepts of oppression, freedom, and power in different contexts, Faldbakken lets Lucy meet out revenge on her oppressors in a narrative littered with references to popular culture, which bears Faldbakken’s trademark of being at once seriously disturbing and highly entertaining.
One decidedly unfun tradition for translations, however, is preserved here – we’ll get to read the third book in a trilogy first. But who can resist a trilogy titled “Scandinavian Misanthropy?”
And catching up on all the news that fit to feed – among FriendFeed friends – Shots Magazine has an interview with Camilla Lackberg, Reg reports that Stieg Larsson won the Books Direct Crime Thriller of the Year award at the Galaxy British Book Awards, which apparently is called “the Nibbies.” CrimeFic Reader has more at It’s a Crime! (Or a Mystery). And Random Jottings has good things to say about Lackberg’s The Preacher, which she found a “tightly plotted, well thought out thriller” that was less morose than she expected from watching Branagh’s Wallander.
This blog is part of a project to document and celebrate the amazing amount of high-quality crime fiction coming from the Scandinavian countries and being translated into English.
Start up funding for the project was provided by a Research, Scholarship and Creativity grant from Gustavus Adolphus College, a Swedish-heritage liberal arts college in Minnesota.
