Foreign Bodies: Zygmunt Miloszewski's A Grain of Truth on Radio 4

The latest endeavour in Mark Lawson's Foreign Bodies series on Radio 4, is a two part adaptation (by Lawson) of Polish crime writer Zygmunt Miloszewski's A Grain of Truth (tr. Antonia Lloyd-Jones).

The first part is avalable now to stream or download, and the second is on later today (at 3pm).

The Blood Painting
Foreign Bodies, Grain of Truth Episode 1 of 2

Taut crime thriller by leading Polish writer, Zygmunt Miloszewski, dramatised for radio by Mark Lawson. War time intrigue and modern politics mesh in a murder mystery.

The complexities and frustrations of the modern Polish legal system are the setting for this bestselling crime novel, featuring long suffering State Prosecutor Szacki who finds himself trapped in a limbo land of half-truths and secrets from post-Communist Poland. Will he prove himself to be a redoubtable seeker of the truth or will he compromise?

Episode 1: The Blood Painting
Szacki is finding small town Poland a little dull but a bizarre murder case soon throws him back into action. The crime scene is littered with grotesque clues suggesting that the murder is mirroring an infamous Jewish blood libel, drawing on historical anti-Semitism.

TV & Radio News: Keeper of Lost Causes, Sleuths, Spies & Sorcerers, Body Count Rising, Foreign Bodies

The film based on Jussi Adler-Olsen's The Keeper of Lost Causes (UK: Mercy) is showing on BBC Four on Saturday (15th) at 9pm.

More details on the BBC Website.

Read Maxine's review of the book, Mercy, translated by Lisa Hartford.

Also of interest next week on BBC Four, is Andrew Marr's Sleuths, Spies & Sorcerers which begins on Monday (17th), at 9pm. The first episode deals with detective fiction:

In the first episode of a series that explores the books we (really) read, Andrew Marr investigates the curious case of detective fiction. This is a genre that been producing best-sellers since the 19th century, and whose most famous heroes - Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Inspector Rebus - are now embedded in our collective psyche. But how does detective fiction work- and how do the best crime writers keep us compulsively turning the pages? 

Andrew deconstructs detective stories by looking at their 'rules' - the conventions we expect to be present when we pick up a typical mystery. Because detective fiction is an interactive puzzle, these rules are the rules of a game - a fiendish battle of wits between the reader and the writer. What is remarkable is that instead of restricting novelists (as you might expect), these rules stimulate creativity, and Andrew reveals how clever writers like Agatha Christie have used them to create a seemingly infinite number of story-telling possibilities.

The fictional detective is a brilliant invention, a figure who takes us to (often dark) places that we wouldn't normally visit. While we are in their company, no section of society is off-limits or above suspicion, and Andrew shows how writers have used crime fiction not merely to entertain, but also to anatomise society's problems. 

Andrew interviews modern-day crime writers including Ian Rankin, Sophie Hannah and Val McDermid, while profiling important pioneers such as Agatha Christie, Dashiell Hammett and Ruth Rendell. Along the way, he decodes various great set-pieces of the detective novel such as Hercule Poirot's drawing room denouements, and the 'locked room' mysteries of John Dickson Carr.

On Radio 4, listen online or download via iPlayer - Body Count Rising:

Killer brandishes knife....squeezes hands tightly around woman's throat....drags body through woods. This could describe any number of prime-time dramas on British TV.

There are numerous dramas with similar recurring narratives - a little girl abducted and murdered, a teenage girl raped, a wife beaten. Cue sinister music, graphic images, and sometimes overly-sexy portrayals of female victims. But has television culture made the depiction of rape and the ritualistic murder of women into an undesirable industry?

Audiences lap it up, but what does our fascination with glossy, high budget TV series, saturated with the corpses of unfortunate women, say about the society we live in, and the way we view women?

Actor Doon Mackichan examines the trend, speaking to criminal sociologist Ruth Penfold-Mounce; Variety's TV critic Sonia Saraiya; Allan Cubbit, writer and director of critically-acclaimed series The Fall; playwright Nick Payn; Elaine Collins, Executive Producer of Shetland; and an actor who has twice played a rape victim.

And courtesy of Radio 4 Extra, you can stream episodes of Mark Lawson's Foreign Bodies series from a couple of years ago:

Series 1 - Mark Lawson presents a history of modern Europe through literary detectives.
Series 2 - Mark Lawson looks at crime fiction as a form for exploring social change around the world.
Series 3 - Mark Lawson examines how mystery novels have reflected five different political systems.

Radio News: Foreign Bodies returns tomorrow on Radio 4

Mark Lawson's Foreign Bodies returns tomorrow (17/11) at 13.45 on Radio 4, for series 3. This time, "Mark Lawson examines how mystery novels have reflected five different political systems".

The first episode is about Cuba and Communism:

To complement Radio 4's major dramatisations of The Havana Quartet by Cuba's leading crime writer, Leonardo Padura, Mark Lawson examines how mystery novels have reflected five different political systems in a new series of Foreign Bodies.

In today's programme Mark Lawson explores fictional investigations of Cuba after the Castro revolution with Leonardo Padura, author of The Havana Quartet, and Caroline Garcia-Aquilera, a Cuban-American writing from exile in Miami.

Following episodes cover USA (Anti-Communism), Poland (Post-Communism), Australia (Commonwealth Democracy) and Nigeria (Post-Colonialism).

Radio News: Foreign Bodies is back

Radio 4's Foreign Bodies, presented by Mark Lawson is back for a second series, beginning today at 13.45. The episodes can be downloaded later and there is an omnibus edition on Friday at 9pm.:

To accompany BBC Radio 4's dramatisations of the Martin Beck novels, which established crime fiction as a form for exploring social change, Mark Lawson presents five more 'Foreign Bodies' focusing on Greece, Argentina, Northern Ireland, South Africa and fictional TV crime-scenes including Broadchurch.

Examining subjects including the way in which crime novels have portrayed transitional societies in South Africa and Northern Ireland and explored the legacy of military rule in Argentina, in this first programme Lawson, in Athens, talks to writers including Petros Markaris, whose detective series featuring Inspector Costas Haritos has both predicted and depicted the Greek financial crisis.

Schedule:

Mon 8 Jul

13:45 BBC Radio 4
Series 2 Greece - Inspector Costas Haritos

1/5 Mark talks to Petros Markaris, whose crime series prophesied the Greek financial crisis.

Tue 9 Jul

13:45 BBC Radio 4
Series 2 Argentina - Superintendent Perro Lascano

2/5 How Argentinian writers have dramatised the transition from dictatorship to democracy.

Wed 10 Jul

13:45 BBC Radio 4 FM only
Series 2 Ireland - Inspector Benedict Devlin

3/5 Mark meets novelist Brian McGilloway, whose books explore the long shadows of the Troubles

Thu 11 Jul

13:45 BBC Radio 4 FM only
Series 2 South Africa - Detective Captain Bennie Griessel

4/5 Mark Lawson talks to Deon Meyer about the criminality in post-apartheid South Africa.

Fri 12 Jul

13:45 BBC Radio 4 FM only
Series 2 Screenland - DS Ellie Miller, DI Sarah Lund, Captain Laure Berthaud

5/5 Mark Lawson examines the rise of female investigators in TV crime dramas.

Foreign Bodies - the Bibliographies (week 3)

I've now listened to the final 5 of the 15 episodes of Radio 4's European Crime Fiction (Foreign Bodies) programme presented by Mark Lawson. Most of the episodes have interviews with or references to other authors and I've put their names and a link to their bibliography on Euro Crime:

11. Germany: Jakob Arjouni (Featured: Mrs Peabody (see her article on Kemal Kayankaya here, also interviewed: Esmaham Aykol)

12. Scotland: Ian Rankin [Mentioned: Andrea Camilleri; Interviewed: Ann Cleeves]

13. Sweden: Henning Mankell, Stieg Larsson [Interviewed: Liza Marklund, Camilla Lackberg, Kenneth Branagh; Mentioned: Andrea Camilleri, Ian Rankin, Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo, Arthur Conan Doyle]

14. Norway: Jo Nesbo (parts of the interview came from his Harrogate event) [Also interviewed: Gunnar Staalesen]

15. Russia: Boris Akunin [Mentioned: Agatha Christie, Arthur Conan Doyle, Georges Simenon, Martin Cruz Smith, Robert Harris's Archangel, Tom Rob Smith, Antonio Hill; Interviewed: Ian Rankin, Andrey Kurkov]
    

The bibliographical links for the first five episodes are here and week two's are here. Alternatively see all posts tagged as Foreign Bodies.

The podcasts/programmes can be listened to/downloaded  for another few days at Radio 4's Foreign Bodies website.

Many more bibliographies (by nationality) can be found via the Euro Crime Books page.

Foreign Bodies - the Bibliographies (week 2)

I've now listened to episodes 6 to 10 of the 15 daily episodes of Radio 4's European Crime Fiction (Foreign Bodies) programme presented by Mark Lawson. Most of the episodes have interviews with or references to other authors and I've put their names and a link to their bibliography on Euro Crime:

6. England: PD James, Ruth Rendell [also mentioned: Dorothy L Sayers]

7. Italy: Leonardo Sciascia [Interviewed: Andrea Camilleri, Gianrico Carofiglio]

8. Spain: Manuel Vazquez Montalban [Interviewed: Antonio Hill and Jason Webster [also mentioned re Northern Ireland: Stuart Neville]

9. England: Lynda La Plante [Interviewed: Val McDermid, Ian Rankin, Saskia Noort (briefly), Henning Mankell]

10. Italy: Andrea Camilleri [Mentioned and/or influenced by: Manuel Vazquez Montalban, Georges Simenon, Ian Rankin, Leonardo Sciascia] [Not mentioned but fitting in with the apolitical policeman requirement mentioned near the end of the podcast: the Inspector De Luca series by Carlo Lucarelli]

The bibliographical links for the first five episodes are here.

The podcasts/programmes can be listened to for another few weeks at Radio 4's Foreign Bodies website.

Many more bibliographies (by nationality) can be found via the Euro Crime Books page.

Foreign Bodies - the Bibliographies (week 1)

I've now listened to the first 5 of the 15 daily episodes of Radio 4's European Crime Fiction (Foreign Bodies) programme presented by Mark Lawson. Most of the episodes have interviewed or referred to other authors and I've put their names and a link to their bibliography on Euro Crime:

1. Belgium: Agatha Christie, Georges Simenon

2. Germany: Friedrich Durrenmatt [also mentioned: (by Mrs Peabody): Friedrich Glauser; Ferdinand von Schirach]

3. Czechoslovakia : Josef Skvorecky

4. Netherlands: Nicholas Freeling [Interviewed: Saskia Noort who mentioned A C Baantjer]

5. Sweden: Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo [Interviewed: Jo Nesbo, Henning Mankell, Val McDermid, Asa Larsson, Gunnar Staalesen, Jens Lapidus, Camilla Lackberg]

The podcasts/programmes can be listened to for another few weeks at Radio 4's Foreign Bodies website.

Many more bibliographies (by nationality) can be found via the Euro Crime Books page.

European Crime Writing & Martin Beck on Radio 4

A reminder that a weekday, daily series about European Crime Writing begins on Radio 4 this afternoon and that the Martin Beck Killings, starring Steven Mackintosh, begin on the 27th:

Foreign Bodies presented by Mark Lawson starts on BBC Radio 4 on Monday October 22^nd at 13.45 – with a shortened omnibus edition on Fridays at 9pm.  Each episode is available to download.     

The Martin Beck Killings are broadcast on Saturday afternoons beginning October 27^th at 2.30pm.

Details of the first few episodes, which begin with Poirot and Maigret can be found here. Each episode is 15 minutes long.

Foreign Bodies: A History Of Modern Europe Through Literary Detectives

Crime fiction reflects society's tensions. Helped by famous literary detectives including Maigret, Montalbano, Dalgliesh and Wallander, Mark Lawson shows how crimes reflect Europe's times from the world wars of the 20th century to the Eurozone crisis and nationalist tensions of the 21st. In programme one, Mark Lawson looks at the template set by a Belgian created by an Englishwoman and a French cop created by a Belgian: Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot and Georges Simenon's Jules Maigret hearing from Val McDermid, Lord Grey Gowrie, Andrea Camilleri and David Suchet.

In crime fiction, everyday details become crucial clues: the way people dress and speak, the cars they drive, the jobs they have, the meals they eat. And the motivations of the criminals often turn on guilty secrets: how wealth was created, who slept with whom, what somebody did in the war. For these reasons, detective novels often tell the story of a place and a time much better than more literary novels and newspapers which can take a lot of contemporary information for granted.

Mark Lawson's series focuses on some of the celebrated investigators of European fiction and their creators: from popular modern protagonists - including Henning Mankell's Kurt Wallander, Jo Nesbø's Harry Hole and Andrea Camilleri's Inspector Montalbano - through Ian Rankin's Inspector Rebus and Lynda La Plante's DCI Jane Tennison back to Friedrich Dürrenmatt's Inspector Barlach and Josef Skvorecký's Lieutenant Boruvka.

The Martin Beck series begins with Sjowall and Wahloo's Roseanna:

Roseanna is the first in the Martin Beck series, written over ten years from 1965 - 1975 by the husband and wife writing team of Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö. Featuring the intriguing, dogged, intuitive complex figure of Detective Inspector Martin Beck and his colleagues in the National Police Homicide Department in Stockholm, the books set a gold standard for all subsequent Scandinavian crime fiction, and for much of the best crime fiction in Britain and America written since the 1960s. The books have been admired and imitated by crime writers and readers ever since their publication; now Radio 4 offers audiences the opportunity to discover just why the books have been so acclaimed by those in the know.

The use of crime and police procedure to hold up a mirror to society and its most dysfunctional elements is commonplace now, but that's because Martin Beck paved the way for subsequent generations of European crime writers whose fallible heroes - Kurt Wallander, John Rebus etc. - make the best fist they can of their own lives whilst trying to tackle the violence around them.

The books were written deliberately to give an unsentimental, realistic portrait of Sweden in the mid-sixties: not the liberal place it was thought to be, but a society suffering from a stifling bureaucracy and a creeping rottenness behind the surface sheen. Confronting the dark side of this society are stubborn, logical, anti-social Detective Inspector Martin Beck, his closest friend Detective Inspector Lennart Kollberg - overweight, hedonistic, opinionated; Detective Inspector Frederick Melander, with a memory like a card-index file and a noxious pipe clamped in his jaws, and their colleagues in the murder squad.

In Roseanna, they are faced with the body of an unknown girl found in a canal dredger. The long investigation ends with a risky and frightening sting.

The twitter hashtag is: #bbcforeignbodies