link up

Glenn Harper finds life imitating art when a news story (scroll to the bottom) highlights those who have an unusual gift for remembering faces, just like Beate Lønn in Jo Nesbø’s series. The author of the study has kindly placed his article online for all to read, as the enlightened Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences have pledge to do.

Michael Carlson reviews Hakan Nesser’s Woman With Birthmark at CrimeTime and finds echoes of Per Wahlöö’s stand-alones in the ambiguity of Nesser’s setting.

Nominally, it appears to be Dutch, but there are echoes of Swedish society, and maybe even German habits in this amalgam of a country; apparently Nesser’s original Swedish uses words from all three languages in order to blue any distinction one might make. In this sense, it reminds me of Per Wahloo’s solo novels, like The Generals or The Lorry, whose settings were almost identifiable as a country, but with slight differences which drove home the point that this was not so far from home after all. I have the feeling that is the point Nesser is driving home in Woman With Birthmark, and, in the end, he drives it home powerfully.

The WSJ has things to say about Knopf’s campaign to promote Stieg Larsson’s second book. However, they are saying them only to subscribers. Luckily, my library is a subscriber so I can give you the gist. Knopf will launch a “six-figure marketing effort” – unusual in the business, where less than 5% of books (according to an industry insider) get any kind of advertising, and such advertising as there is tends to one-off print placement. This campaign will include mass transit advertisements in four cities and web ads as well as social media promotion. The company behind it is treating it more like the kind of advertising done for movies. Kind of odd when book news is all about how much you’re spending on promotion of a bestseller.

Also at the WSJ – and free to us hoi polloi – an intriguing interview with Maj Sjöwall, who with her husband Per Wahlöö, took Swedish crime fiction in a wholly new and realistic direction that set the groundwork for today’s wave of Scandinavian mysteries. (Naturally, the story is illustrated, as all such stories are, with a photo of Branagh playing Wallander.)

The Beck books were written between 1965 and 1975 by a pair of politically minded journalists whose larger purpose, in the words of Wahlöö (who died in 1975), was “to analyze criminality as a social function as well as its relationship to both society and . . . various types of moral lifestyles.” But the Beck chronicles — ensemble pieces that focused as much on Beck’s co-workers as on the putative hero — seemed anything but polemical; the books’ most revolutionary aspects were their human-sized protagonists and their realistic portrayal of actual police work (full of false starts, false leads and tedium).

Back then, Ms. Sjöwall writes by email from Sweden, “Swedish crime-writers wrote Agatha Christie-like books and seldom had policemen as main characters. Crime novels were considered pulp-literature in those days. Intellectuals rarely admitted to reading those kinds of books. We wanted to contribute to improving the linguistic quality, and to changing the way media treated that type of literature.” The couple were writing entertainment, “but our intention was also to describe and criticize certain changes in our society and the politics of that decade.”

She also points out in the interview that, though the couple translated Ed McBain’s 87th Precinct books into Swedish, Martin Beck predated their knowledge of Steve Carella & Co.

“When we started writing our series,” she says, “we didn’t know about Ed McBain. In a review of our second or third novel we were compared to him and Hillary Waugh. We read their books and urged our publisher to buy the rights. He did and asked us to translate Ed McBain. We translated a dozen of his 87th Precinct novels and were thus forever considered his epigones.”

Kerrie thinks highly of Mari Jungstedt’s Unseen - “it is really a story about relationships on a number of levels, and a tale that points out how our actions from our days of innocence can reach out into the present.”

The Hieroglyphic Streets maps out Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö’s The Man Who Went up in Smoke in which Martin Beck travels behind the iron curtain to Hungary.

DJ reviews Karin Fossum’s When the Devil Hold’s the Candle – one of the creepiest books I’ve ever read.

The crimes in this novel happen early, and afterwards Karin Fossum move under the skin of her main characters until we achieve some kind of understanding why everything could go so horribly wrong. Irma Funder speaks out for herself for the first time in her life and explains what happens when the devil holds the candle, and when it is not just Irma, but Irma and Andreas. Do things happen by accident, or are human beings evil? And if so, who are evil?

Theorin wins the glass key!

Hot off the keyboard – bibliophile reports from Iceland that Johann Theorin has won the Scandinavian prize for Nattfåk (Night Blizzard). Nice to have our foreign correspondents share the news – and with a photo. (Theorin is on the far left in the cap.)

raised eyebrows, humor, and the universality of dialogue and difference

J. Kingston Pierce of the incomparable Rap Sheet notices John Harvey’s quote from a Hakan Nesser interview – to whit:

The crime novel used to be, and I stress used to be, a despised genre, diversionary literature not to be taken seriously. Then came the upturn and the so-called wave of crime novels, then the surfeit, of course, it all got too much, there were just too many of them. But now we’re entitled to raise an eyebrow at the poor quality and the amount of rubbish out there.”

. . . which causes Jeff to wince; do we really have to put the genre down to distinguish ourselves? (Sadly, I couldn’t find the interview online or in LexisNexis.)

The Bibliophile of (Another) 52 Books will be attending the Glass Key award. She reports “[t]here will be a panel discussion with the authors afterwards, and on Saturday there will be lectures, followed by a panel discussion with the participation of Jo Nesbø, Diane Wei Liang and Yrsa Sigurðardóttir.” <Sigh. Wipes drool off keyboard.>

Quercus appears to be having cash-flow problems that some attribute to the advance for Millennium Trilogy III. It’s causing some consternation among their other authors. Here’s hoping all works out – it’s a good publisher with a strong list.

Euro Crime presents an advance peek at K. O. Dahl’s soon-to-be-released (in the UK) book, The Last Fix.

Norm, aka Uriah, has intriguing coverage of the Foreign Correspondent’s panel of translators at CrimeFest. Evidently the audience had difficulty focusing, being stunned by the Godlike attractiveness of one of them. <Wipes drool off keyboard again.> We are, alas, forced to await the reveal of what Don Bartlett (aka Adonis) wrote in his inscribed copy of The Devil’s Star.

DJ, aka Dorte, raises a very interesting question about humor in Nesser’s work and gets many thoughtful responses, including the possibility that some readers expect gloom from Scandinavian writers and also that humor is sometimes difficult to understand because it can be so culture-specific. Not in the particulars, I suspect, but in being able to catch the nuances and inflections that signify dry wit or gentle sarcasm.  Humor in Scandinavian crime fiction is a subject that Peter Rozovsky has discussed elsewhere.

In the following article in this thematic issue of Mystery Reader’s Journal, Nesser addresses the notion that all Swedes write the same way:

We have things in common. First, most of us write crime fiction. Second, we write in Swedish. . . .But no way there is such thing as a Swedish way of writing a crime story. Because a book—every book—is a dialogue between two people. One writer, one reader. If a book is good it doesn’t matter a great deal if these said protagonists were born and educated in very diagonal corners of the world, or raised under whatever incompatible circumstances, because people are people everywhere. And when it comes to important matters—e.g. good stories—we understand each other.

bits and pieces

DJ reviews Hakan Nesser’s Kvinde med Modermaerke aka Woman With Birthmark (and what an interesting Danish cover it has). Though it’s about rather dreary people, and the protagonist can be grumpy at times, DJ points to the humor in the book and considers the entire series, set in a geographically ambiguous country, highly enjoyable.

The Globe and Mail thinks Lackberg’s The Preacher is dandy – it shows why Läckberg is often compared to Ruth Rendell.” I can’t honestly see the connection at all.

Peter Rozovsky reports from CrimeFest in Bristol on an interview with Hakan Nesser. Dour Swedes may be, Nesser said, but not cripplingly so: “We’re not that depressed, but we don’t talk a lot. That’s good for a crime story. You keep things inside for thirty years,” and then they just come out.” Also included are tidbits about his books, both translated and not (yet).

Peter also points to a sad story in the Times about the bitter dispute over Stieg Larsson’s literary estate (and the rather outsized amount of money involved) between his all-but-married partner and his family. She was not included, but has his laptop on which are pages of a fourth novel and outlines for more, so there is speculation that the family’s declaration there will be no further publication of the series might also be disputed.  A Norwegian website has been formed to support Larsson’s partner in the dispute. Donations are scaled using an algorithm that combines how much you enjoyed the books combined with how angry you are about his partner’s situation.

Update: Sarah Weinman’s thoughts on the situation.

there’s something about Harry

Peter reports that Jo Nesbo’s Headhunters will be made into a film. I have mixed feelings about this – not that I don’t wish Nesbo every success, but that the book doesn’t feature Harry Hole, who is one of those characters who lives and breathes and changes interestingly with every book. Peter says,

Headhunters is a thriller which focuses on Roger Brown, a successful headhunter who finances his extravagant life by way of dangerous art thefts. Upon meeting the Dutchman Clas Greve, he starts planning his biggest heist ever, but soon runs into trouble.The book has been a great success in Scandinavia.”

He also predicts that this book is the first in a projected series. Sigh. Extravagant lifestyle, art thefts? I’d like to see Harry’s take on that.

dark poetry

Glenn Harper reviews Håkan Nesser’s Woman With Birthmark at International Noir Fiction.  He draws parallels between the way the author creates a complete fictional world and the themes of the book.  I can’t resist quoting him at length because his reviews are richer than dark chocolate truffles:

. . .there’s another example of “world-building” in Nesser’s newly translated Woman with Birthmark, the kind of reconstruction of reality that a killer engages in when he/she rewrites the rules of civilized society and justifies his/her actions. . . .

In spite the dark theme and philosophical overtones, the novel has the lightness of tone that is a distinctive quality of the Van Veeteren series (there is even a joke about Scandinavia, as if to indicate that the world of the novel is somewhere outside that geographic zone, in spite of the author’s Swedish background). To say more would be to spoil not so much the plot as the texture or experience of the story. But I should emphasize that, lest let my suggestion of the philosophy in the book put anyone off, the story is brisk and well told, its deeper overtones embodied in interesting characters, lively conversations, and murderous intentions.

DJ has high praise for Arnaldur Indridason’s Silence of the Grave. She says, “Den ordknappe og indadvendte hovedperson, Erlendur, har en del til fælles med Sjöwall og Wahlöös legendariske Martin Beck.” And then she kindly says it in English, too.  I too find this a real master work – a truthful and disturbing picture of domestic abuse that is also wonderfully structured and suspenseful without in any way exploiting the characters.

Peter reviews Henning Mankell’s Faceless Killers – and also finds some genealogic roots in the Martin Beck series. Since Faceless Killers is the first book in the Kurt Wallander series,  readers are provided with some background information about the main characters. Kurt Wallander is gritty and determined, newly separated from his wife and somewhat estranged from his daughter. He often drinks too much, and he has problems dealing with the interim prosecutor, who is an attractive young woman sent down from Stockholm. Perhaps it is the fact that she is pretty that is bothersome? Also, he has a somewhat strange and remomte relationship to his father, an ageing artist, who is showing the first signs of senility.” He thinks its only fault is that it ends too soon.

Nesser say Nesser (plus a few more links)

Marilyn Stasio’s comments on the Branagh Wallander (including Branagh’s comments on his version of Wallander and some quotes from Mankell hismelf) are interesting.

Mr. Branagh admires the mournful cops in Swedish, Icelandic and Norwegian crime novels for tackling the big social problems that globalization has created in their countries and in other supposedly stable governments around the world. “The Wallander novels are a sort of requiem for a lost utopia, for the lost innocence of Sweden,” Mr. Branagh said in a phone interview. “Using Sweden as his inspiration he writes of the larger loss of innocence for a world that is expanding in so many ways, but is unhappier than ever.”

The Brothers Judd recommend the original Swedish television series – and, while they’re at it, the original Norwegian film Insomnia. (I totally agree with that recommendation.)

Reading Matters reviews Camilla Lackberg’s The Preacher, finding it generally well-done, though the domestic stuff gets a bit cloying at time (and at 400+ pages could have been trimmed).

Maxine has no reservations about recommending Hakan Nesser’s Mind’s Eye: “The plot is simple yet powerful; elemental themes are involved; there is lots of droll humour and neat touches; the solution is satisfying; and one is left hoping for more.”

Norm (aka Uriah) of Crime Scraps also likes Nesser’s The Return. I like the way he blends the very black humour into the police procedural format, and that reminds me a lot of the Martin Beck series.”

There’s a brief review in the Times of Nesser’s Woman With Birthmark as well – hat tip to Maxine for the link. “The laconic, cynical Chief Inspector Van Veeteren is in the general mould of Northern European coppers, though not as troubled as many . . . A novel with superior plot and characters.”

And finally, DJ reviews Helene Tursten’s The Man With the Little Face – which she thinks is good so long as it stays in Sweden; the action moving to Spain is less plausible. Sadly, it hasn’t been translated into English and may not be now that Soho has dropped Tursten from their list.

good news

Steph’s wonderful WhereDunnit blog is full of good news.

• BBC has commissioned more Wallander starring Kenneth Branagh – and the first is finally set to run in the US.
• The Nervous Man is a new Wallander novel, and probably the last in the series, that will be published in Sweden this summer.
• And in September, another Erlendur novel by Arnaldur Indridason will published in English in the UK – titled Hypothermia.

Sunnie has her reservations about The Girl Who Played With Fire - and wonders if anyone else did. “Good in parts but annoying and exasperating in others.”  (She calls it a “curate’s egg” – a new phrase to me, but possibly a good book title, eh?)

Cathy Skye reflects on The Princess of Burundi – mixed feelings, but worth reading: “There was just enough of main character Ann Lindell there for me to know that she’s someone special that I would like to get to know better. (I would suggest that, if she has any more children, her maternity leave occurs between books and not right in the middle of one!) I also found Eriksson’s descriptions of Sweden and Swedish society to be very good. As I was reading, I felt as though I were there crunching through the endless snow and becoming better acquainted with the people.”

crimeficreader thinks highly of Camilla Läckberg’s The Preacher and writes a lovely and thorough review to explain why. Go read it.

If you’re going to CrimeFest you can hear all about the art of translation in the “Foreign Correspondant” panel. I believe this is all Maxine’s fault, or is it Karen’s? Anyway, never underestimate the power of blog comments.

Glass Key nominees

Thanks to Uriah (aka Norm) here’s a link to the nominees for the Scandinavian crime fiction prize, the Glass Key. Apparently an organization in each country chooses a nominee. This year they are:

• Denmark:Lene Kaaberbøl and Agnete Friis,  Drengen i kufferten.
• Finland: Marko Kilpi, Jäätyneitä ruusuja.
• Iceland: Arnaldur Indridason, Harðskafi.
• Norway: Vidar Sundstøl, Drømmenes land.
• Sweden: Johan Theorin, Nattfåk.