Noomi Rapace as Salander in The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo
Since Bill Ott wrote A hard-boiled gazetteer to Scandinavia in 2007 at least ten promising new Scandinavian crime series have appeared in the U. S. Clearly this is a growth-industry that shows no sign of abating. Without a doubt, the biggest splash has been made by Steig Larsson’s three novels starring journalist Mikael Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander, the Aspergeresque computer hacker. If you haven’t read the books, you’ve probably seen the Swedish movies (two already released in the U. S., the third coming soon; an American film version is also in the making). Larsson’s books, especially The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, are vivid critiques of Sweden’s casual disregard of women’s rights. They’ve been real eye-openers for American women. And the news about the dispute between Larsson’s heirs is shocking. Apparently Swedish law doesn’t recognize the rights of a common law wife.
We ought to know by now that despite their universal healthcare and free universities, the Scandinavian countries are not utopias. We’ve seen six episodes of Kenneth Branaugh playing the worn and apathetic detective Kurt Wallander. The BBC actually went to the small town of Ystad to shoot the series, then toned down the color for a thoroughly washed-out look to suit Wallander’s personality. I’ve been to Sweden. It’s not that gray.
The success of Henning Mankell’s Wallander series was one of the causes cited by Bill Ott for the dramatic increase in Scandinavian mysteries in the United States after 1997. And I think that’s probably still true. Mankell is still called “the king of Swedish mysteries.”
The other cause Mr. Ott suggested for the growth of crime novels in Scandinavia was the growth of crime in Scandinavia following the dissolution of the Soviet Union and subsequent influx of Eastern Europeans. Clearly that’s still an influence on the newer authors listed below. Their gangsters, white slavers, hitmen and other villains do seem to be prominently foreign, though one wonders if that reflects the reality.
Henning Mankell was once asked why Scandinavian mysteries never star private eyes or amateur detectives. He replied that there weren’t any– in Sweden, at least. He said that the police do their job and there’s no need for any other kind of detective. That’s something that might be changing–in fiction at least. Four of the series listed below do not feature police detectives. These are:
- Stieg Larrson, whose Mikael Blomkvist is an investigative journalist
- Liza Marklund, whose Annika Bengzton is a journalist,
- Yrsa Sigurdardottir, whose Thora Godmundsdottir is a lawyer and single mother
- Johan Theorin, whose Gerlof Davidson is a retired sea captain.
Bibliographic details and are available at: http://www.esequels.com/
Norway
Nesbo, Jo
Readers will like Harry Hole. He is a hard-boiled detective, Norwegian style–tall and blonde. His boss describes him as the best investigator and the worst public servant in Oslo’s Crime Squad. Harry is a dogged investigator always ready to spring into action, sometimes leaving his girlfriend on hold. He fights alcoholism with the help of a rather droll counselor. Author Jo Nesbo quit his job as a stockbroker to concentrate on writing crime fiction and singing in a popular Norwegian rock band. Only four of the seven Hole novels have been translated into English so far, with another expected some time in 2010. The Redbreast was chosen by Norwegian book clubs in 2004 as the “Best Norwegian Crime Novel Ever Written”.
1. The Redbreast (HarperCollins, 2007)
After an incident involving an American Secret Service agent, Hole is relegated to the political unit, where he investigates the smuggling of an incredibly powerful rifle. This novel contains interesting flashbacks to Norwegian soldiers fighting for Hitler during World War II. This is the third novel in the series, but the first two are not available in English, so start reading with this one.
2. Nemesis (HarperCollins, 2009)
Harry, who has dragged himself out of an alcoholic stupor in time to save his relationship with his girlfriend Rakel, investigates the killing of a bank cashier, which he thinks was premeditated.
3. The Devil’s Star (Harper, 2010)
Harry is assigned to the case of a young woman found murdered in her flat in Oslo. She has a five-pointed red diamond under her eyelid and one missing finger.
4. The Redeemer (Random House Canada, 2009)
Harry must track down an assassin who shot a Salvation Army worker in the head at point-blank range during a Christmas street concert.
5. The Snowman (Random House, 2010)
A young boy wakes to find his mother missing, but all he finds is her pink scarf tied around the neck of a snowman that someone built outside his house. Harry Hole finds himself on the track of a serial murderer.
Dahl, Kjell Ola
Three of K.O. Dahl’s novels feature a mismatched pair of Oslo policemen: Chief Inspector Gunnarstranda is short and short-tempered. He is a widower with false teeth and thinning hair and he doesn’t suffer fools gladly. Though he respects and uses modern forensic tools like DNA analyses, his methods are traditional. He relies on close interrogation and informed suppositions based on insight into suspects’ motives to puzzle out the final solution to the mysterious crimes he investigates. His assistant, Frank Frolich, is the easy-going, overweight and usually put-upon partner. Gunnerstranda’s acerbic comments and the interaction between the two detectives create a touch of droll humor. These suspenseful and atmospheric stories are less likely to feature thugs and drug lords than some other Scandinavian mysteries.
1. The Last Fix (Minotaur, 2010)
After an argument with her boyfriend and an incident at a party, recovering young addict Katrine Bratterud turns up the next day nude, raped and murdered. This is the first novel in the series published in Norwegian, but the third to be translated into English
2. The Man in the Window (Minotaur, 2009)
Elderly shopkeeper Reidar Folke Jespersen, a member of the Norwegian Resistance in World War II, is murdered and his naked corpse deposited in the window of his store.
3. The Fourth Man (Thomas Dunne, 2008) Frolich gets himself into deep trouble by having an affair with Elisabeth Faremo, a mobster’s sister. Then Elisabeth provides a false alibi when her brother, Jonny, is accused of murder.
Finland
Joensuu, Matti
Matti Joensuu, until recently a criminal investigator in the Helsinki Police Department, started writing crime fiction because it helped him process the sad and terrible crimes he has seen in the line of duty. He has extraordinary insight into the lives of ordinary people and how easily they may fall into crime. So far he has written ten novels starring Detective Sergeant Timo Harjunpää of Helsinki’s Violent Crimes unit. Harjunpaa’s fatalism seems even deeper than Kurt Wallander’s. The criminals Harjunpaa pursues reflect the callousness of society and the resulting apathy that seems to afflict so many lives. Only three novels have been translated into English, but with renewed interest in Nordic mysteries, perhaps there will be more to come.
1. Stone Murders (St. Martin’s Press, 1987).
Two people in Helsinki have been stoned to death, apparently by homeless and violent teenagers.
2. The Priest of Evil (Arcadia, 2006)
Harjunpää is after a demented serial killer who apparently convinces teenagers to carry bombs onto Helsinki’s metro
3. To Steal her Love (Arcadia, 2008)
Numerous women have awakened to an unknown presence in their bedrooms, only to assume in the light of morning that it was all a dream. But increasing evidence points to Tipi, a lock picker for a local burglary ring.
Sipila, Jarkko
Author and journalist Jarkko Sipila has reported Finnish crime news for MTV3 TV News and the Helsingin Sanomat newspaper for many years. He has written nine Takamäki police procedurals and co-wrote a TV series based on his books. Lieutenant Detective Kari Takamäki is the head of the Helsinki Police Violent Crimes Unit. Takamaki is refreshingly different from most Nordic policemen, he is a good husband and father, he’s not an alcoholic, he gets along with his colleagues and his superiors. Suhonen, the team member who does most of the undercover work plays a prominent part. Sipila’s noir police procedurals take readers into the gritty world of organized crime, gangs, and corrupt officials.
1. Helsinki Homicide: Against the Wall (Ice Cold Crime, 2009)
A dead body is found in the garage of an abandoned house in Northern Helsinki, probably the work of a professional hitman. This won the 2009 Finnish Crime Novel of the Year Award
2. Helsinki Homicide: Vengeance (Ice Cold Crime, 2010)
Tapani Larsson, a Finnish crime boss just released from prison is determined to destroy his enemies, chief among them the undercover detective Suhonen.
Iceland
Sigurdardottir, Yrsa
Reykjavik lawyer Thora Godmundsdottir invariably gets drawn into the problems of her clients. She manages to juggle her legal work, her amateur sleuthing, and the care of her teenaged son and six-year-old daughter without much help from her unsatisfactory ex-husband. Thora is personable, but no-nonsense and diligent in her sleuthing. Her knowledge of the law and willingness to ask uncomfortable questions (a la Miss Marple) enable her to get to the bottom of some very knotty puzzles. Interesting characters take precedence over suspense in these cozies with an exotic setting. Sigurdardottir is a civil engineer as well as an author.
1. Last Rituals (Morrow, 2007)
The mutilated body of a German student is found in a closet at the University of Reykjavik and Thora works on the case with German investigator Matthew Reich.
2. My Soul to Take (Morrow, 2009)
Jonas Julusson asks Thora for help when one of the West Iceland farmhouses he purchased to turn into a spa seems to be haunted. Thora becomes a grandmother at the end of this installment.
3. Ashes to Dust (Minotaur, 2012)
An excavation of houses buried by an old lava flow on Heimaey Island, reveals three bodies and a severed head.
Sweden
Larrson, Stieg
In 2004, Swedish left-wing journalist Stieg Larsson took three manuscripts to Norstedts Publishers of Stockholm. They were the first three novels of a series of ten mysteries he planned to write. But a few weeks later he died of a heart attack at the age of 50. The manuscripts of what came to be called the “Millenium” series were published and became immediate hits in Sweden and international bestsellers in Europe and the United States. They were quickly made into hit Swedish movies. The series features the mesmerizing character of 24-year-old Lisbeth Salander, who was raised from the age of 13 as a ward of the state. Lisbeth is a very angry feminist, a deliberate outcast, a pierced and tattooed rebel with no scruples about using her genius at hacking into restricted databases for information. The low key Mikael Blomkvist, a left-wing investigative journalist, recognizes Lisbeth’s skills and asks for her help. Along the way they become inexorably linked in the suspenseful pursuit of violent and unscrupulous criminals.
1. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Knopf, 2008)
Investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist has been sentenced to prison for libel and defamation. But before he serves his six-month term, he accepts a missing persons case from Henrik Vanger, a rich industrialist. Professional computer hacker, Lisbeth Salander, helps Blomkvist unravel the disappearance of Vanger’s great neice
2. The Girl Who Played with Fire (Knopf, 2009)
A few weeks before publication of an expose implicating prominent people in Sweden’s sex-trafficking, the author and his girlfriend are shot to death in their Stockholm apartment. Lisbeth Salander’s fingerprints are on the gun
3. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest (Knopf, 2010)
Salander, fighting for her life in a intensive care unit, will stand trial for three murders if she and Blomkvist don’t establish her innocence and expose the corrupt politicians who are responsible for her plight.
Hellstrom, Roslund
Stieg Larsson fans may like this noir series featuring two Stockholm police detectives: Sven Sundkvist and Ewert Grens. Grens is the gruff, gray-haired and overweight senior officer who is obsessed with Anni, a female officer who was injured in the line of duty 25 years earlier. Grens visits her frequently in the nursing home even though she may not be aware of who he is. Sunqvist is younger, more sensitive, married with one young son. The tensions in Hellstrom’s plots don’t have quite the immediacy of some thrillers, but they will keep you reading. The criminals they deal with are the thugs, addicts and pimps of Stockholm’s lower depths. Two novels have been translated into English, with a third, Three Seconds, coming out soon. Anders Roslund is a Swedish TV personality and Borge Hellstrom is an ex-criminal who works in rehabilitation. They write under the pseudonym of Roslund Hellstrom.
1. The Beast (Little Brown, 2005)
Soon after a convicted child murderer escapes from prison, another child is found dead. Grens and Sunqvist investigate amid the panic caused by the press. And the murdered child’s father is also out for revenge. Winner of Scandinavia’s prestigious Glass Key award for best crime novel of the year
2. Box 21 (Farrar, 2009)
A badly beaten young Lithuanian prostitute is taken to the hospital for treatment. Her story gets entwined with that of the brutal thug who was responsible for injuring Grens’ friend Anni twenty-five years earlier.
Lackberg, Camilla
Steig Larsson fans will not like Lackberg’s books (try them with the Mary Higgins Clark crowd). Her novels are about as far removed from the stereotypical Swedish mystery as you can get. There are no thugs, no chase scenes, no gloomy policemen. Her main characters are biographer Erica Falck and policeman Patrik Hedberg and their growing attraction to each other, at least in the first book, eclipses the mystery they solve. Lackberg’s mysteries are set in Fjallbacka, a coastal summer resort not far from Goteberg, but very little nordic atmosphere leaks into her books–they could just as easily be set in Bar Harbor. Nevertheless Lackberg was voted Swedish Writer of the Year for 2005 and her first novel, The Ice Princess, is now getting a lot of hype in the U. S. Two other Lackberg novels have been translated into English (another translation on the way in 2011), and at least four more novels, plus a cookbook with recipes from Fjallbacka, await translation.
1. The Ice Princess (Pegasus, 2010)
Biographer Erica Falck returns to her hometown to sort through her late parents’ belongings. She finds the town much changed–from a sleepy fishing village to an upscale summer resort. Erica discovers the body of a childhood friend dead, an apparent suicide.
2. The Preacher (HarperCollins (UK), 2009)
After a small boy stumbles across the body of a young woman, police unearth the corpses of two more women, possibly those of girls who disappeared 20 years ago. Not yet published in the U.S.
3. The Stone Cutter (HarperCollins (UK), 2010)
A lobster fisherman turns up the drowned body of a little girl. The autopsy reveals that the drowning was not an accident. Not yet published in the U.S.
Marklund, Liza
Journalist Annika Bengzton’s commitment to her job as a crime reporter often brings her close to danger. The series follows her career from her first summer job to chief crime reporter for a popular Stockholm tabloid. Annika has two young children and a husband who happily shares in child care, but she still feels the anguish of being a working mother. And at the office she fights hostility from some of her male colleagues. Marklund has been a crime writer and journalist herself, and her portrait of hectic newsroom action rings true. Her novels are fast-paced and suspenseful, her characters are fully-drawn. Four of Marklund’s eight Bengzton novels have been translated into English, with a fifth, Red Wolf, due out in 2011. Three more titles await translation. Marklund is co-owner of Piratforleget, Sweden’s third largest publishing house and she has just co-authored The Postcard Killers (Little Brown, 2010) with James Patterson.
1. Studio Sex (Atria, 2002)
Prequel to Numbers 2 and 3. Fledgling reporter Annika Bengtzon has just started a summer job at a Swedish tabloid when the body of a young woman who has been raped and murdered is discovered in an abandoned cemetery
2. Paradise (Simon & Schuster, 2000)
After a hurricane leaves southern Sweden in chaos, subeditor Annika Bengtzon is trying to piece her life together and finds refuge in Paradise, a foundation that helps people whose lives are in danger.
3. The Bomber (Pocket, 2001)
A bomb explodes in the new Olympic village near Stockholm just months before the Summer games are set to begin, causing the death of an unidentified woman.
4. Prime Time (Pocket, 2006)
Thirteen people are spending the shortest night of the year together in an isolated manor house. In the morning, the brightest star in Swedish TV is found shot to death.
Theorin, Johan
Theorin is a journalist who lives in Gothenburg, but his novels are set on the remote island of Oland where his forebears lived for centuries. They were hardy farmers and fishermen whose tall tales and ghost stories have found their way into Theorin’s novels. The isolated setting alone creates a sense of danger, which the dark winters and harsh blizzards of the climate intensify. Then there are the bogs thought to have been sites of ancient sacrifice. A sense of menace grows palpably with each chapter of Theorin’s thriller-crime novels and the final plot twists are clever and surprising. The unusual detective in this pair of novels is Gerlof Davidson, a retired sea captain.1. Echoes from the dead (Delta, 2008)
Somebody mails Gerlof a sandal that belonged to his grandson who disappeared twenty years earlier. Gerlof and his daughter Rose piece together the strange tale that finally explains what happened to him.
2. The Darkest Room (Delta, 2009)
Stockholm schoolteacher Joakim Westin, his wife Katrine, and their two young children are just settling into a big old house on the remote northern island of Öland. But tragedy strikes and Katrine drowns. Joakim tries to carry on, but slowly becomes obsessed with the ghostly feeling that Katrine is still nearby.
–Janet Husband, posted 9/4/2010
References:
1. Ott, Bill Hard-boiled gazetteer to Scandinavia (Booklist, May 1, 2007)
2. Scandinavianbooks.com
3. Rudolf, Janet A., “Scandinavian Mysteries” in Mystery Readers Journal, Fall 2007, Vol. 23, #3.
4. Demko, George J. from his website G. J. Demko’s Landscape of Crime www.dartmouth.edu/~gjdemko
Posted
September/5/2010
Well, everybody in the country is going to be reading this. We might as well consider it “One Book, One Country.” For the second time, Michael Connelly has put both his series characters in one book: hard-boiled cop Harry Bosch and small time lawyer Mickey Haller, who works out of his Lincoln Town Car, tackle a case that is 24 years old.
