Books about European Crime Fiction

One of the many knowledgeable commenters on the blog, Simon Clarke, has alerted me to a series of books about European crime fiction being published by the University of Wales. First up is:

French Crime Fiction
This first volume in the European crime fictions series acts as an introduction to crime writing in French. It presents the development of crime fiction in French cultures from the mid-nineteenth century to the present day and explores the distinctive features of a French-language tradition. Such discussion will be grounded in the study of novels by selected French-speaking writers, some of whom have an established international reputation, such as Georges Simenon, whilst others may be relatively unknown, such as Léo Malet.

Each chapter will examine a specific period, movement or group of writers, as well as engaging with broader debates over the contribution crime fiction makes more generally to contemporary French and European culture. All extracts in French will be translated into English. The book is written in an accessible style without assuming previous knowledge of crime fiction novels and their development in France, thus the title will appeal to undergraduates and also to the general, informed reader of crime fiction.

(This is due to be published in April 2009, £75 for a hardback edition.)

This is to be followed by Italian Crime Fiction:
This book constitutes an introduction to crime writing in Italian from its first development in the 1930s to the present day. It explores the distinctive features of the Italian tradition, such as the close links with the American and French tradition and the social commentary which characterises much crime fiction in Italian in the post-war period. This study focuses on novels by selected Italian writers, some of whom have an established international reputation, such as Leonardo Sciascia and Umberto Eco, whilst others may be relatively unknown, such as the new generation of crime writers of the Bologna school, and analyses the contribution crime fiction makes more generally to contemporary Italian and European culture. The book will be written in an accessible style aimed at undergraduates and does not assume any previous knowledge of Italian Crime Fiction. And will also appeal to the general, informed reader. All extracts in Italian will be translated into English.
(Currently listed on amazon for March 2010)

And hopefully appearing this year: Criminal Scandinavia: Nordic Crime Fiction. The information from Simon is that: "It's edited by Andrew Nestingen and Paula Arvas and will contain some great essays on contemporary Scandinavian writers such as Mankell, Marklund, Nesser, Holt, Indridason while also remembering the work of Sjowall and Wahloo".

The website does list a paperback version for the Italian volume at a more modest £16.99 but if your library has no plans to stock these books then an Inter-Library Loan is always worth a go. The fee is currently £2.50, refundable if the book is unobtainable..

Scandawegian crime fiction on Radio 4

Steph of Wheredunnit fame mentioned over on the crime and mystery fiction friendfeed room that Open Book on Radio 4 had a piece on Scandinavian crime fiction, or Scandawegian as they referred to it, the other day (repeated today at 4pm as well). Presented by Mariella Frostup whose father is Norwegian, she spoke to crime fiction critic Michael Carlson about Sjowall and Wahloo, Henning Mankell, Yrsa Sigurdardottir, Stieg Larsson and also Karin Fossum and Jo Nesbo (no K O Dahl though). Some interesting observations from Carlson eg that Scandinavian languages have smaller vocabularies than eg English and thus lend themselves to translation easier. The Scandinavian feature is only ten minutes long so best listened to perhaps, than have me paraphrase it incorrectly!

Listen again via iplayer. The Scandinavian bit is about 20 minutes in.

And if you want to check out more Scandinavian authors and/or reviews of books mentioned in the programme, go to the Scandinavian authors page on Euro Crime.

Forthcoming Scandinavian crime fiction

I've updated the amazon list of scandinavian crime fiction due out in 2009 with three new additions at the bottom.

New Scandinavian crime titles for 2009

Apart from The Girl Who Played With Fire, what have we got to look forward to in the way of new titles from our favourite Scandinavian authors in 2009?

Well, I've started an amazon.co.uk list which has the titles listed so far - here.

Harrogate - Nordic Crime Readers Group Session

I've had a couple of requests as to which titles/authors were mentioned in this session so here they are to the best of my memory...

Ann (Cleeves) started off by asking people how they'd found the Mari Jungstedt books Unseen and Unspoken. The poor quality of the translation was commented on which lead to Ron Beard from Quercus commenting on a similar problem with Helene Tursten's The Torso which also has an American translation. Ann then moved on to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson which Maxine Clarke and I enthused about.

Also sitting in with the session was Johan Theorin who explained about some of the Swedish crime fiction prizes including The Sherlock which was cancelled in 1987 due to lack of suitable entries. The genre was kick-started by Henning Mankell in the 1990s.

Ann mentioned that Mankell's books always start with a vivid scene eg a chair in the middle of an empty road - a technique she has nicked - and hopes that the Kenneth Branagh tv series will brings his books back to prominence.

Maxine spoke more about Helene Tursten and the debt owed to the masters, Sjowall and Wahloo the husband and wife team who wrote ten books starring Martin Beck, after whom a prize has been named.

Ann then went round the other Nordic countries beginning with Norway; Karin Fossum's work was touched on, in particular Black Seconds and Don't Look Back and then (my personal favourite) Jo Nesbo including my plea for people to read The Redbreast first.

Then representing Denmark - Leif Davidsen. Lime's Photograph was praised and I mentioned the excellent The Serbian Dane.

For Iceland, of course Arnaldur Indridason and there was some discussion of the Dagger winning Silence of the Grave.

And for Finland, Maxine spoke up for Ice Moon by Jan Costin Wagner a haunting book written by a German author who spends half the year in Finland.

A general discussion of recommendations brought up the Eric Winter series by Ake Edwardson and The Beast by Roslund-Hellstrom.

Many more authors can be found on the Euro Crime website, by country: Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden.

Tinkering with the Scandinavia Bibliography page

Previously on Euro Crime, the Scandinavia books page comprised authors, and their bibliographies, from Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. After a bit of re-jigging, it now also includes authors from Iceland. Plus there are now separate pages for authors from Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden as well as the existing Iceland page.

The Euro Crime definition of Scandinavia, as being the five countries mentioned above, is one several definitions of Scandinavia, but it is in common usage (including the Official Website of the Scandinavian Tourist Boards in North America). The alternative definitions of Scandinavia and their relationship to the term, the Nordic countries, are explained on this About.com page.

A newly translated Swedish crime writer

Due to be published later this month by Marion Boyars Publishers Ltd, The Streets of Babylon, by Carina Burman, is the first of two books (so far) which feature Euthanasia Bondeson, novelist and amateur sleuth.

Synopsis: The setting is London in 1851, the year of the Great Exhibition. Together with a Welsh police inspector the successful Swedish authoress Euthanasia Bondeson goes in search of her beautiful companion, who has disappeared in the narrow streets and alleyways of London. She meets beggars and whores, artists and society beauties, all actors on the modern city's stage in a drama of dark, shadows and ever changing desires. In this world where gender boundaries are constantly shifting, can we even tell who is a man and who is a woman? With skirts flapping Euthanasia forges her way through this romp of a crime novel, surveying the streets which Sherlock Holmes himself will not tread until a whole generation later.

You can read a longer synopsis on the publisher's page and here's a sample from the first chapter:

The English police are unlike anything seen in Sweden. When we talk of police officers, the English say ‘policemen’. I would almost go a step further and call them ‘police gentlemen’. They are a splendid species, the English police: tall, upright, well dressed in close-fitting, dark-blue tailcoats with silver embroidery on the collar, tall black hats and white gloves. One can hardly believe they perform the same task as our surly Swedish police officers, who stink of schnapps and wield their sticks on anything that crosses their path. The English police gentlemen are unarmed, and it is not beneath their dignity to help two unaccompanied ladies with their luggage and find them a cab.

Read more of chapter one here.

What can we expect from Jo Nesbo?

Well according to the Salomonsson Agency site, the rights to books #1 (The Bat Man), #6 (The Reedemer) and #7 (The Snowman) have been sold to Harvill...which just leaves #2 (The Cockroaches) unbought.
(Nos #3 (The Redbreast) and #5 (The Devil's Star) have already been published and #4 (Nemesis) is due next month.)

At the official Jo Nesbo website (written in English) there's quite a lot already on the site even though it's still under construction. It confirms the book order and titles and there are links to extracts from the books, though these aren't available yet. There is a creepy trailer for The Snowman.

There's a long interview too which refers to book eight and concludes with:

How many Harry Hole books are there in you?

“I’m not absolutely sure, but he’s a hero with the seeds of destruction in him. He won’t live forever. He is going to escape from Oslo in the next book. To Hongkong.”

Read the interview in an easier pdf format here.

Forthcoming K O Dahl titles

Here in the UK, Faber have published The Fourth Man and the soon to be released The Man in the Window by K O Dahl and have signed up for two more of his titles, #2 and #6 in the Gunnarstranda and Frølich series. In the US Thomas Dunne Books will publish all four titles, beginning with The Fourth Man in March. (The Fourth Man is #5 and The Man in the Window #3 in the series).

From an article at Norway, the official site in the United States:

Kjell Ola Dahl has written numerous crime novels and his books have been translated into several languages. He has received several awards for his literary works, including the prestigious Norwegian Riverton Prize for his novel ”A Little Golden Ring” (”En liten gyllen ring”), in 2000. Now, no less than four novels from his popular series about the Oslo based police inspectors Gunnarstranda and Frølich are to be published in the U.S. by Thomas Dunne Books. We caught up with the author over a transatlantic cup of coffee.

A Realistic Approach
“The Scandinavian crime has a somewhat more realistic approach to the everyday life of ordinary people,” Dahl says, commenting on the considerable attention the genre has gained from an international audience the last years.
There has been a wave of popularity for this kind of literature, Dahl explains. His own novels have already had a formidable success in countries like Germany and Great Britain.

Dahl thinks this genre is appreciated by a global audience because it offers something else than the stereotypical crime. His novels feature both corrupt businessmen, cynical strippers, drug addicts and film noir type femme fatales, but Dahl also writes within a tradition of Scandinavian social realism.

For readers who are not necessarily familiar with the Norwegian geography and lifestyle, the settings add an exotic touch to the story.
“A lot of people appreciate the local settings, it gives a kind of social anthropology approach to what’s happening,” Dahl says.

Read the rest of the interview here.

Scandinavian Crime/Mystery novels coming out in 2008

Currently there's quite a bit of buzz on the mailing lists I'm on about my current read - The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson. By all accounts so far, it could be a rival for Vargas for the International Dagger.

I've put a couple of lists together on amazon for new Scandinavian crime novels coming out in 2008. One is for amazon.com and one for amazon.co.uk. They are slightly different due to books coming out earlier in one country than another.

New Scandinavian Crime/Mystery Novels (amazon.com)

Forthcoming Scandinavian Crime Novels (amazon.co.uk)

Words Without Borders - new edition

This month Words Without Borders is concentrating on Scandinavian authors. From the newsletter:

Chill out with our Midsummer festival of literature from Scandinavia. From Norway, Johan Harstad's projectionist takes a cinematic ambulance ride, Levi Henriksen strands a sailor landlocked by the charms of an octet of sisters, and Per Petterson goes out to steal horses and comes back robbed of illusions. Matti Joensuu creeps into the mind (and more) of a Finnish serial killer. Finland-Swedish writer Kjell Westo flags a soccer referee. Sweden's Willy Kyrklund presents a case of psychiatric transference, and Jonas Karlsson's raffle risks a daughter's loyalty. Denmark's Helle Helle packs the emotional baggage of a cross-country move. And Sweden's great Tomas Transtromer joins his countrymen Gunnar Harding, Hakan Sandell, and Harry Martinson and Norway's Catherine Grondahl around a poetic Maypole. See you at the Solstice.

Crime-wise only the short story from Matti Joensuu is posted but:

One final note: as a magazine that prides itself on old-fashioned editing values, we're taking a brave new leap into the web world―we will now be rolling out pieces throughout the week rather than all in a monthly lump. Come back early and often to catch new stories as they appear.

You can scroll through a whole list of European short stories and extracts here.