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.

Radio News: Angstrom on Radio 4

Starting tonight at 6.30pm on Radio 4, four-parter Angstrom, a spoof of Scandinavian crime stories...

A comedic Scandinavian detective yarn starring Matthew Holness, written by Jason Hazeley and Joel Morris.

Knut Angström is a brooding, alcoholic, maverick Swedish detective from the tough streets of Oslo. Following the death of his wife, he is posted to the Njalsland peninsula where he becomes embroiled in a labyrinthine murder (or possibly not-murder) case which bears an eerie similarity to the Askeladden killings - a case from his distant past.

Crime on the Radio

There are a few crime programmes available on listen again/download via iPlayer at the moment:

1. 21 Shades of Noir: Lee Child on John D MacDonald (16 days left)

As the author of the internationally renowned Jack Reacher series, Lee Child knows how to draw his readers into a story.

And for decades he's been intrigued by the unusual life of John D MacDonald. Born in 1916, MacDonald was from a comfortable Pennsylvanian family. He went to Harvard and worked in naval intelligence during The Second World War. mustering out as a Lieutenant Colonel. It was what the British would call "a good war".

But Lee Child has always been confused by what happened next. With the pick of General Motors, IBM or maybe even The Pentagon before him - this Harvard MBA promptly spent five months, sitting at a table and hammering out pulp fiction, losing five stone in the process.

After 800,000 words and constant toil he managed to sell a story for $25 dollars. Writing under dozens of pen-names John D rode the paperback boom, crafting more than 60 novels in all and creating what Lee Child considers to be his greatest creation - the 21 novels featuring his world-weary "salvage consultant" and righter of wrongs, Travis McGee.

Lee Child considers the mystery at the heart of John D's work, and the mysterious life of one of popular fiction's most enigmatic authors.

2a. Meet James McLevy (11 days left)

How it all began - a remake of the first episode of the Victorian detective drama featuring Inspector James McLevy - which first aired on Radio 4 in 1999.

Written by David Ashton.

Starring Brian Cox and Siobhan Redmond

The death of a bank manager from a heart attack might have seemed straightforward enough - except he was found dead and naked in the Water of Leith. When it's revealed that the man was last seen trying to "save" girls in a brothel run by Jean Brash, McLevy's suspicions are aroused. Assisted by Constable Mulholland, newly arrived from Ireland, McLevy investigates.

2b. Four new episodes of McLevy (13 to 16 days left)

3. Short story by Sarah Hilary: Snip-snip (27 days left)

When ten year old Nicky finds himself aboard a boat from his homeland of Russia en route to England where a life of promised adventures and the opportunity to play football awaits, he inadvertently stumbles on a dark, sinister, and terrifying secret.

Sarah Hilary takes us into an ominous and disturbing hidden world in her latest story for Radio 4. Sarah is the author of the Marnie Rome series of crime novels, the first of which, 'Someone Else's Skin' won the 2015 Crime Novel of the Year Award.

4. There are also two Doctor Who serials available for a few more days: Protect and Survive, and Fanfare for the Common Men and not forgetting Doctor Who spin-off Class which began airing on BBC Three on Saturday.

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.

The Crime Writer at the Festival - Short Stories, Episode 4

The last in a series of short stories, set at Festivals/Events, running on Radio 4 is by David Mark and is called A Marriage of Inconvenience. It was on last Sunday but you can listen again for the next 25 days via iplayer or the website.

From the BBC Radio 4 website:

Short story series celebrating the unique atmosphere of Crime Writing Festivals. Tonight, a new story by David Mark, imagining the repercussions when a crime-writing partnership, and marriage, turns sour.

David Mark spent more than 15 years as a journalist, including seven years as a crime reporter with The Yorkshire Post - walking the Hull streets that would later become the setting for his series of novels featuring Detective Sergeant Aector McAvoy. David was reader in residence for the Theakstons Crime Writing Festival between 2013 and 2015.

Reader: James Lailey
Writer: David Mark
Producer: Kirsteen Cameron.

The Crime Writer at the Festival - Short Stories, Episode 3

The latest in a series of short stories set at Festivals/Events running on Radio 4 is by Val McDermid and is called Same Crime, Next Year. It was on last Sunday but you can listen again for the next 25 days via iplayer or the website. Next Sunday, the story is by David Mark.

From the BBC Radio 4 website:

Tonight, a new story by Val McDermid, who is one of the co-founders of the Theakston's Crime Writing Festival, held every July in Harrogate, and which has become one of the biggest celebrations of the genre in the world.

Her story, "Same Crime, Next Year" is set at Harrogate and imagines the fallout from a torrid affair between two crime writers.

Last Thursday (21st July), on the opening night of this year's Crime Festival in Harrogate, Val was awarded the prestigious Outstanding Contribution to Crime Fiction Award, joining past winners Sara Paretsky, Lynda La Plante, Ruth Rendell, PD James, Colin Dexter and Reginald Hill.

Reader: Siobhan Redmond
Writer: Val McDermid
Producer: Kirsteen Cameron.

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

Front Row Does Harrogate 2012

I'm a bit behind the times with these. Radio 4's Front Row have issued two podcasts recently about the last Harrogate Crime Writing Festival including an edited down reproduction of the infamous ebooks panel. You can hear Stephen Leather's comments but not all of the audience reaction. (The original session was an hour.)

E-book debate special 29 AUG 12

Thu, 30 Aug 12

Duration:
29 mins

Mark Lawson chairs a debate on whether e-books and digital distribution represent a terminal threat or a new chance for authors, traditional publishers, agents and bookshops, in a session recorded at the Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate.

plus this one which I've not listened to yet:

Harrogate Crime Writing Festival Special 24 AUG 2012

Fri, 24 Aug 12

Duration:
29 mins

Mark Lawson reports from the annual Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate, with guests including Harlan Coben, Ann Cleeves and John Connolly.

Listen or download both podcasts from the Front Row website.

Sarah Death on Book Cafe

If you're a visitor to the FriendFeed Crime and Mystery Room (and if not do come along) then you'll have heard about this a few days ago.

I downloaded the podcast after Maxine at Petrona had mentioned it but only got round to listening to it last night.

16 January 2012
Jo Nesbø says that Per Wahlöö was the 'godfather of Scandinavian crime writing', creating the archetypical disillusioned, troubled but somehow dedicated detective now familiar to us from the work of Steig Larsson, Henning Mankell and Nesbø himself. Sarah Death, the translator of two new editions of Wahlöö's classic crime novels, explains why now's the time to discover him for ourselves.

Sarah Death, editor of Swedish Book Review, who as well as retranslating Per Wahlöö's Murder on the Thirty-first Floor and The Steel Spring is also working on Kristina Ohlsson's series, the first of which Unwanted was published in English last September.

In the 10 minute interview which begins the podcast, as well as discussing the Wahlöö books, Sarah suggests a refresh in translation of the Martin Beck series might not go amiss and also recommends Hakan Nesser and Lars Kepler. If you want further reading suggestions, have a look through the Euro Crime list of Swedish authors, many of whose books are reviewed on the site.

There is a little more information on the Per Wahlöö retranslations here.

To get the podcast - as well as subscribing through iTunes you can download the podcast here or you can listen again (for 3 more days only) here.

The Darkest Room on Radio 4 Extra

I had a tip-off about this from a friend at reading group. The CWA International Dagger Award winning, The Darkest Room by Johan Theorin is being serialised on Radio 4 Extra. The first of five thirty-minute parts begins on Saturday at 23.30.

If you can't stay up then I imagine it will be on iPlayer very shortly afterwards!


Radio 4 Extra page.

Euro Crime review of The Darkest Room.

Johan Theorin's bibliography with reviews of all three books available in English.

The Ice Princess on Radio 4 Extra

Camilla Lackberg's The Ice Princess is being serialised on Radio 4 Extra and is read by Alex Tregear. The first of 5 parts was aired on Saturday but you can listen again on BBC iPlayer for the next 3 days. The second part will be broadcast on Saturday at 11.30pm.

The Ice Princess translated by Steven T Murray, is the first in the Patrik Hedstrom and Erica Falck series by Camilla Lackberg.

Woman with Birthmark on Radio 4 Extra

Hakan Nesser's Woman with Birthmark is being serialised on Radio 4 Extra and is read by Michael Maloney. The first of 5 parts was aired on Saturday but you can listen again on BBC iPlayer for the next 5 days. The second part will be broadcast on Saturday at 11.30pm.

Woman with Birthmark is the fourth in the Van Veeteren series by Hakan Nesser.

Anne Holt on Woman's Hour

Author Anne Holt was interviewed on today's Woman's Hour on Radio 4. You can listen again or download the podcast (the interview's about 10 minutes in).

Anne Holt worked in the Oslo Police Department before becoming a lawyer and setting up her own law firm. Then she saw an advert for a crime writing competition. She set to work, wrote her first novel, but missed the deadline. However the novel did get published, and became an immediate bestseller. She has since written many more books and the latest one, called ‘1222’ is about to be published in Britain. She talks to Jane about the book, which is set in a snowbound hotel where hundreds of people, including at least one murderer, are marooned following a train crash.

Crime Writers on Open Book

The current edition of Radio 4's Open Book has a plethora of crime writers in it:

Dreda Say Mitchell talks to former bookseller Tim Waterstone about his new novel. Writer Fay Weldon discusses how she has used Maori myths in her new book. And crime writers NJ Cooper and Tania Carver* explain why they have been encouraged to write under names which mask their real gender.

You can listen again or download the podcast.

N J Cooper=Natasha Cooper
Tania Carver=Martyn Waites and wife

Mark Billingham will be on the next show (Sunday).

Jo Nesbo on Front Row

Mark Lawson recently interviewed Jo Nesbo on Front Row. You can hear the 8 minute piece from the 22nd minute in, on the Front Row page.

Jo Nesbo's bibliography.

Other Norwegian crime writers available in English.

TV & Radio news (and it's all good!)

I had an email from, David B a blog visitor, about the Swedish Wallander series. He has been in touch with Yellow Bird and they have the following news:

I would like to let you know that BBC4 has acquired the second season of the Swedish Wallander series (i.e. film 14-26).

No news of when BBC4 will show them but great news nonetheless (I hope they repeat the first series again as I'm missing part of an episode...). So thank you so much to David for passing the news on.

We've had several recent announcements of casting news over the past few months:

Stephen Tompkinson as Inspector Banks

David Morrissey is Tom Thorne

and now Rufus Sewell is to play Aurelio Zen:

From Digital Spy:

Rufus Sewell has signed up to star as Aurelio Zen in a new BBC drama.

The Eleventh Hour actor will play the fictional detective across three feature-length dramas which will transmit on BBC One.

Set in and around Rome, and based on the best-selling series of novels by the late Michael Dibdin, Zen will start shooting in Italy in Spring 2010.

And though not euro crime in anyway, the tv drama Castle, starring Nathan Fillion is coming to the Alibi Channel soon.

Here's the lowdown from Alibi:

Castle is the hit new US crime drama coming soon exclusively to Alibi. Nathan Fillion plays Richard Castle, a best-selling crime novelist who, despite fame and acclaim, has become bored with his own success. All that changes, however, when a real-life copycat murderer starts staging scenes from Castle's novels. Castle is first suspected of the crimes and then asked to team up with NYC homicide Detective Kate Beckett to help her solve the case.

Together, the pair make a formidable combination. Beckett is a first-class investigator with a rare ability to empathise with victims, having joined the force after the murder of a loved one was never solved. Castle has spent years researching crime and brings that unique knowledge, together with a creative flair and touch of irreverence, to homicide cases. Their contrasting approaches, however, often cause sparks to fly...

Finally a bit of radio news:

Sir Ian McKellen is to play the title role in a BBC Radio 4 adaptation of Ian Fleming's Goldfinger.

The James Bond drama will also star Rosamund Pike as Pussy Galore and Toby Stephens as Bond.

Impressionist and actor Alistair McGowan will play the canny caddie, Hawker, during the famous golf scene.

Martin Jarvis, who is also directing the play, is the voice of Fleming, while John Standing appears as M, the head of MI6.

The radio dramatisation will be faithful to the novel rather than the Goldfinger film.

The plot revolves around Bond's pursuit of Auric Goldfinger, an international criminal, who is masterminding a plan to rob Fort Knox.

The play will air on Radio 4 on 3 April.

Read the whole article at the BBC website.

Raven Black on Radio 4

Radio 4 has a 60 minute play of Raven Black by Ann Cleeves on Saturday 23 January at 2.30pm. It should also be available via "listen again" for a further 7 days.

Raven Black is the CWA Dagger Award-winning first part of the Shetland Quartet which has been followed by White Nights, Red Bones and the soon to be published Blue Lightning.

Ann Cleeves's Euro Crime page is here with links to reviews of the books mentioned above and Raven Black is reviewed on Euro Crime here and here and my review of the audio book of Raven Black for Mystery Women is here.