Hypercrime

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.