UK Kindle Bargain - Nordic Noir

Barry Forshaw's Nordic Noir is currently 99p on UK Kindle. Barry, as well as writing a new book, Euro Noir, out in August I believe, has kindly agreed to be a judge for the 2014 Petrona Award.

Euro Crime's listing of crime fiction titles by Scandinavian (Nordic) authors, available in English, can be found here, with many titles reviewed.


Official Blurb: Nordic Noir: The Pocket Essential Guide to Scandinavian Crime Fiction, Film and TV by Britain’s leading expert on crime fiction, Barry Forshaw, is a compact and authoritative guide to the phenomenally popular genre. The information-packed study examines and celebrates books, films and TV adaptations, from Sjöwall & Wahlöö’s highly influential Martin Beck series through Henning Mankell’s Wallander (subject of three separate TV series) to Stieg Larsson’s groundbreaking The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, cult TV hits such as the Danish The Killing, The Bridge and the political thriller Borgen, up to the massively successful books and films of the current king of the field, Norway’s Jo Nesbo. Nordic Noir anatomises the nigh-obsessive appeal of the subject and highlights every key book, film and TV show. For both the beginner and the aficionado, this is a hugely informative, highly accessible guide (and shopping list) for an essential crime genre.

Upcoming Crime Fiction Events in London

Several European authors in translation will be making appearances in London in the next few months.

1. The Nordic Noir book club has their first event, on Thursday, 3 February 2011 from 6:30 PM - 9:00 PM, at which Håkan Nesser will be speaking:

Join us in exploring Sweden's crime fiction, with speakers including best-selling author Håkan Nesser.

What does the landscape of Swedish crime fiction look like? What do we learn from Nesser, from other writers, from their book covers? What real and mental landscapes do readers (and viewers) of Swedish crime in the UK see?

Find out all of this and more, in the first of our UCL's Nordic Noir book club events, at the Horse Hospital, an atmospheric, Grade II listed venue in the heart of literary London.

The ticket price includes a glass of wine. Other light refreshments will be available to purchase at the event, provided by Scandinavian Kitchen.

Please note: The Eventbrite booking agent requires that you use a credit card to buy tickets. If you do not have a credit card, please contact Nichola Smalley (n.smalley(at)ucl.ac.uk) to reserve a ticket.

Details of the venue and how to buy tickets by credit card can be found at their website.

2. Events involving Italian author, Alessandro Perissinotto whose Blood Sisters will be published on 11 February:

From Hersilia Press's website:

Barry Forshaw and Michael Gregorio with Alessandro Perissinotto
Italian Institute of Culture, SW1X 8NX, London, UK
7 February 2011, 7:00 pm

Alessandro Perissinotto academic and novelist
Royal Holloway Central London site, Bedford Square, 2 Gower Street, WC1E 6DP, London, UK
8 February 2011, 5:00 pm

Italian writers in the UK and Ireland: Alessandro Perissinotto
Humanities Research Institute, 29-31 Clarendon Place, University of Leeds, LS2 9JT, Leeds, UK
9 February 2011, 5:00 pm

3. As part of a Scandinavian month, Gunnar Staalesen will be visiting Willesden Green Library on Thursday 3 March 2011 from 7 - 9 pm:

Willesden Green Library
95 High Road
London NW10 2SF
020 8937 3400
Free Event
Book sale Refreshments

As well as reading from his new book, he will be presenting the winner of a short story competition - the opening sentence having been written by Camilla Ceder:

Have you got what it takes to be the next Stieg Larsson or Henning Mankell?

If so there's a place on a Birkbeck College creative writing course up for grabs when you take part in the Brent Libraries short story competition.

Swedish crime fiction author Camilla Ceder has written the opening lines.

"In theory, Margaret had functioned well as his partner. She was a faded beauty who had once been a celebrated singer. It would not have hurt for her to drink less."

All you have to do is complete the story is no more than 2,000 words.

Entries must be received by 12 noon on 23 February 2011.

Full details and terms and conditions can be found on the Brent Libraries website.

BBC4 - Nordic & Italian Noir

I pored over the new Christmas tv-guide on my way home from work to see what delights are on over the 'festive' period and I spotted these two programmes and before I knew it, two emails from different people involved in them had arrived. As it's too early for the BBC4 website to have the information, here's what I've been sent:

NORDIC NOIR: THE STORY OF SCANDINAVIAN CRIME FICTION BBC4, Dec 20@9pm

Draw the curtains and dim the lights for a chilling trip north as Timeshift investigates the success of Scandinavian crime fiction – and why it exerts such a powerful hold on our imagination.

‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ is a literary blockbuster that has introduced millions of readers to the phenomenon that is Scandinavian crime fiction – yet author Stieg Larsson spent his life in the shadows and didn’t live to see any of his books published. It’s one of the many mysteries this programme investigates as it travels to Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Iceland in search of the genre’s most acclaimed writers and memorable characters.

The programme looks at Henning Mankell’s brooding Wallander series, with actor Krister Henriksson describing the challenge of bringing the character to the screen, and it asks why so many stories have a political subtext. Nordic Noir finds out how Stieg Larsson based the bestselling ‘Millennium’ trilogy on his work as an investigative journalist and it reveals the unlikely source of inspiration for his most striking character, Lisbeth Salander. The programme also meets Jo Nesbo, the Norwegian rock star turned writer tipped to inherit Larsson’s mantle, and Karin Fossum, an author whose personal experience of murder has had a profound effect on her writing.

Narrator: MARIELLA FROSTRUP

Producer/Director: ROBERT MURPHY

ITALIAN NOIR - THE STORY OF ITALIAN CRIME FICTION BBC4, Dec 27@9.30pm

Timeshift profiles a new wave of Italian crime fiction that has emerged to challenge the conventions of the detective novel. There are no happy endings in these noir tales only revelations about Italy’s dark heart – a world of corruption, unsolved murders and the mafia.

Italian Noir features exclusive interviews with the leading writers from this new wave of noir including Andrea Camilleri (Inspector Montablano Mysteries) and serving Judge Giancarlo De Cataldo (Romanzo Criminale) who explains how his work as a real life investigating judge inspired his work. From the other side of the law, Massimo Carlotto talks about how his novels were shaped by his wrongful conviction for murder and years spent on the run from the police.

The film also looks at the roots of this new wave. First Carlo Emilio Gadda (That Awful Mess) used the detective novel to expose the corruption that existed during Mussolini’s fascist regime and then after the Second World War Leonardo Sciascia’s crime novels (The Day of The Owl) tackled the rise of the Sicilian mafia. They established the rules of a new kind of noir that draws on real events and offers no neat endings.

Shot on location in Rome, Bologna and Florence, the film also features Italian writers Carlo Lucarelli and Barbara Baraldi and uses rarely seen archive from Italian television.

Produced and Directed by Francis Welch

There will be a website for the Italian Noir programme which I'll mention when I know what it is.

More about Christmas tv to follow in another post.