Hypercrime

There have been a couple interesting developments in the Stieg Larsson story since I last posted. Most noteworthy is the announcement by Amazon.com that Larsson is the first author to sell over a million digital copies on the Kindle. Amazon have created a new Kindle Million Club and Larsson is the first (and currently the only) member.

Back in May, the New York Times ran a lengthy article on Stieg Larsson by Charles McGrath which is very worth reading. It’s called The Afterlife of Stieg Larsson.

Sarah Weinman recently wrote an excellent article for The Daily Beast which looks at the influence of Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö on Stieg Larsson.

I would like to give the Swedish film version of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo a most enthusiastic endorsement. If you have not yet seen it, it has recently been released on DVD and is also available for download in standard and HD versions from various online vendors, including the iTunes store. Here in the U.S., the second film in the series, The Girl Who Played With Fire, is currently in theaters.

I was recently in a bookstore in Montana and noticed a photo of Noomi Rapace in character with a big question mark drawn over her head. I take it not everyone thought her ideal for the role. I couldn’t disagree more. There is increasing buzz about the American film version in development by Sony Pictures. Producer Scott Rudin and Director David Fincher have apparently been busy casting the likes of Daniel Craig to play Mikael Blomkvist and Robin Wright as Erika Berger. Entertainment Weekly today reports that Stellan Skarsgård is in negotiations to play the role of Martin Vanger. Still no word on who will get the role of Salander, but there are lots of names being discussed. Having enjoyed the books so much, I was apprehensive about any film version, and having been so pleased with the Niels Arden Oplev version, I’m still not convinced Hollywood is going to bring anything except more franchise power to the table. (Will there be a Salander action figure, I wonder?)

I am a bit disappointed that the commercial success of the Millennium Trilogy has not brought greater English-language readership to other great Scandinavian crime writers. There are many who deserve to be read. Amazon may have sold a million digital copies of Stieg Larsson, but they have only released three of Henning Mankell’s Wallander series for the Kindle and I doubt seriously if the combined ebook sales of Mankell, Hakan Nesser, Asa Larsson and Helene Tursten would ever warrant inclusion in an Amazon sales club. It is most certainly not a reflection of the quality of these writers. If anything it shows how isolated and remarkable the Stieg Larsson phenomenon really is.

It’s no secret that Scandinavia is hot and getting hotter, at least for readers of crime fiction.
Here’s a round up of three interesting stories from the blogiverse:

Quickly I wanted to point out a short but thoughtful post addressing the ever popular question: what makes all this recent nordic fiction so good? Peter Rozovsky at Detectives Beyond Borders comments on why Scandinavian crime fiction is so good in his recent post, Here’s to you, Mr. Robinson, or the real secret of Nordic crime fiction. In essence, praise good writing and storytelling before getting carried away with long-winded sociological analysis. Sounds good to me.

Since I’ve recently finished reading The Girl who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest, I’ve been following the chatter about Stieg Larsson with some interest. First, I think it significant that the upcoming U.S. publication of the third installment of the Millennium Trilogy on May 25th will finally allow American’s to complete the saga of Salander. It is also interesting to note that the first two tomes of this trilogy are still on the top of US bestseller lists. NPR reported last week that The Girl Who Played with Fire was number two on the American Bookseller’s Association’s Hardcover Fiction Bestsellers list, and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is number 1 on the paperback list. This sets the stage for a big American reception for The Girl who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest. All I can say is I am delighted to see these great books get such attention in the American marketplace.

Like all publishing successes, there’s controversy. I’ve noted previously the circumstances regarding Larsson’s long-time partner, Eva Gabrielsson, who — due to a twist in Swedish Probate practice governing inheritance in common law relationships — has not seen any royalties for the books, and is reportedly writing a book of her own about Larsson.

In January, a new Swedish biography of Larsson was released which takes the controversy one big step further. Journalist Kurdo Baksi alleges in his recent biography Min vän Stieg Larsson (My Friend Stieg Larsson) that Larsson wasn’t objective in his journalism, and that he even fabricated stories and facts on occasion. Norstedts, the publishers of the biography state on the book’s page on their website, that “Kurdo Baksi was one of Stieg’s very close friends,” which raises the usual questions associated with biographers and their subjects and how the reading public is supposed to interpret the nature of the relationship before the biography was written. Obviously, the credibility of the book rests on the fact that the author was a close confidant and coworker. In my mind, good friends don’t take money to question the integrity of someone’s professional work. The English language, Swedish newspaper, The Local, ran a story with Eva Gabrielsson’s response on January 19th. Gabrielsson calls the allegations slander. Say what you will about Larsson now that he’s gone, one fact eclipses all others: Larsson’s has authored the trilogy of the decade. Or did he?

Yes, it is now being reported that Larsson may not have written the Millenuim Trilogy alone or at all. Danish newspaper B.T. ran a story on January 26 which declared “Stieg Larsson skrev ikke bøgerne alene” (Stieg Larsson Didn’t Write Books Alone). This story summarizes the situation:

…the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter, which last week first raised doubts about whether Stieg Larsson was even able to write the popular crime trilogy. Criticism of the work comes from a former journalist colleague, Anders Hellberg, who worked with Larsson on the telegraphic agency TT, where Stieg Larsson was a journalist and news graphics agent for 20 years.

(translation my own)

Hellberg has apparently not made any suggestion as to who he thinks wrote the books with or for Larsson.

Finally, there are some newly available titles in English which have caught my attention. I have to say that I am happily awaiting the arrival of my copy of The Man From Beijing, the newest US release from Henning Mankell.

Also, Nordic Bookblog has an interesting post about upcoming arrivals from Sweden’s Lars Kepler and Jens Lapidus.

Lars Kepler is the pen name for the writing pair, Alexandra Coelho Ahndoril and Alexander Ahndoril, and their first book to be published in English will is The Hypnotist. This title has been very popular in its native Sweden and has been compared to Stieg Larsson, and has been generally well received in other parts of Europe, though the association elsewhere with Larsson has not been so easy to preserve. Publisher’s Weekly described last March how this title was the subject of an aggressive bidding war in English translation, and ultimately ended up with HarperCollins for release in the UK.

Jens Lapidus is a Swedish criminal defense lawyer turned crime writer who has so far published two books in his Stockholm Noir trilogy. First in the series is Snabba cash (2006) — the English title often appears not as “Fast Cash” but as “Easy Money” — and Aldrig fucka upp (2008) (Never Fuck Up).

I’ve not been able to find any specifics about who is publishing the English translations in the U.S. or when we can expect to see titles given release dates, but Peter at Nordic Bookblog suggests that we could start seeing titles in 2010.

It isn’t exactly news, but I was just reading up on The Nordic Bookblog and found Peter’s Dec. 16th post about the prospects of the acclaimed Steig Larsson Millennium trilogy as a possible Sony Pictures acquisition.

Back on Dec. 15th, there was a press release from Sony’s Columbia TriStar Pictures which explained the option deal and credited veteran producer Scott Rudin and Ole Sondberg and Soren Staermose of Sweden’s Yellow Bird Films. This company was behind both the Swedish and BBC Wallander series and an upcoming six-part ninety-minute series based on works by Norwegian writer Anne Holt featuring Inspector Yngvar Stubø and psychologist and lawyer Inger Johanne Vik. Yellowbird have already produced three feature films and a six part TV series based on the Millenium Trilogy in Swedish. The films have been released already in many countries to high acclaim.

So why does Hollywood need to produce an English language version? According to the press release, “Yellow Bird Films has separately completed a filmed Swedish-language adaptation of the novels for Swedish television and home video release. Columbia Pictures is concluding its agreement to option the novels and produce new, English-language productions based upon the material.”

There’s a good article in the Houston Chronicle from January 10th by Maggie Galehouse that discusses the tradition and “art” of adapting novels into films. It takes a close look at the new Peter Jackson film The Lovely Bones and it states matter-of-factly how in Hollywood, “adaptations are presold commodities”. The success of the novel guarantees a high degree of movie ticket sales even if fans of the original book are often left disappointed. I mention this so we can all return here for a disappointment-prempting re-read of this article just before the Lisbeth Salander, Mikael Blomqvist Hollywood debut.

There’s sure to be a great deal of hype about this in the coming months. Stay tuned.

PW Reports, Soho Press editor-in-chief and co-founder, Laura Hruska, died January 9th after a prolonged illness. A memorial will take place on January 15th.

The Financial Mail Women’s Forum recently posted a good article on the Stieg Larsson estate. How can it be that the widow of the second-bestselling author in the world isn’t seeing any of the royalties? Read the full article The Girl who didn’t Inherit a Fortune: Widow of bestselling Swedish author Stieg Larsson has not seen a penny of his £20m.