know anything about the scandinavian invasion?

Well, this is your assignment and you have to do it yourself…but ill help you…

THE FOLLOWING ARE AN EXTRACTION FROM THE ARTICLE ON: www.materialwitness.typepad.com

Scandinavian invasion This is becoming something of a recurring theme, but it struck me once again last night just how influential the Scandinavian/Nordic nations are becoming in the arena of crime fiction.

The pile of books on my “to read” table is the most visible (not to mention physically dangerous) reminder of this: Henning Mankell, KO Dahl, Jo Nesbo, Stieg Larsson, Arnaldur Indridason. I could start a Scandinavian specific site, if I had the time.

At present I am reading Nemesis, the follow up to Jo Nesbo’s excellent novel The Redbreast. That makes for a lot of time spent in Oslo in the company of detectives this year, as I just recently got through K.O. Dahl’s fine thriller The Fourth Man, and will soon start on a proof of his next work, The Man in the Window.

The blurb for both these authors claims them to be Norway’s finest crime writer and, inevitably I suppose, to be Norway’s answer to Mankell. I don’t think I could choose between them. Both are fine crime writers, highly skilled in the procedural arts and both evoke Oslo, a city I have never visited, beautifully. Their detectives are similar in many ways, Harry Hole and Frank Frolich. Both thoughtful individualists inclined to introspection, both determined pursuers of the truth, often at great expense to themselves.

Lucky Oslo, having two such excellent creations. There are many cities much bigger without even one.

The comparisons to Mankell are interesting because in my one run in with his books so far, about five years ago I would guess, I didn’t get on with him and Wallander. But now having read a lot more Scandinavian fiction, and having spent more time there (albeit in Finland rather than Sweden) I feel I may be a little more in tune with the rhythms of life there and perhaps more open to Mankell.

I may not find out from the next book of his I read though, The Eye of the Leopard, which is a real departure for Mankell, set as it is in Africa where it follows the tale of a Swedish lumberjack’s son who finds himself there after following the dream of a lover. This work was originally published in Sweden in 1990 but it published in the UK and US for the first time next month.

A more conventional Mankell is arriving in the English-speaking world soon also, following the announcement that Kenneth Branagh is to play the Ystad detective in a BBC dramatisation. Thanks to Eurocrime for that nugget as well as the confirmation that Branagh will also be taking on CJ Sansom’s Tudor lawyer, Matthew Shardlake. (More of whom soon as I just finished the excellent fourth installment of the series Revelation.)

Rounding out the current list - and I appreciate this is far from exhaustive, it’s just what I have coming up, for a longer list try the excellent and comprehensive Euro Crime again - is the late Stieg Larsson, and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, which everyone I know has been urging me to read. This is perhaps the book I am currently looking forward to reading most, as a friend whose judgment I trust has been absolutely raving about it. (Although not everyone is crazy about it, check Petrona’s post with contrasting views as well as Maxine’s excellent review on Euro Crime.)

I spend quite a lot of time thinking about why this particular corner of the world should be producing so much excellent crime fiction, but however long I stare at the ceiling of Helsinki hotel rooms pondering this, nothing particularly insightful or inspirational comes my way. So the best I can do is offer this list to a fascinating article by Bill Ott in Booklist which suggests that it might be traced back to the break down of the neighbouring Soviet Union and an influx of immigrants breaking down what were typically fairly insular societies previously.

Whatever it was that caused the outbreak of criminal creativity, long may it continue.

Well, that would be my report…I hope this is good information for you!