True Crime

by Jorn Lier Horst, Norway

Steven Avery from Making a Mrderer

Documentaries and retellings of real murder cases and crimes seem to be the new international trend in crime genre.

During Christmas I watched the documentary series "Making a murderer" on Netflix. True Crime series like this is as fascinating as they are addicting. One of those who made the most impression on me was "The Staircase" which is offering a rare and revealing inside look at a high-profile murder trial against author Michael Peterson. “Paradise Lost” is another fascinating documentary. The same is “Murder on a Sunday morning”. Two of the latest documentaries that have received considerable attention worldwide are “The Jinx” and the podcast “Serial”.

In cold blood

True Crime is not a new phenomenon. In November 1959 Truman Capote went to the small town of Holcomb to see and describe the scene of the murder of farmer Herbert Clutter and his family. During a few days he got to know everyone who was involved in the investigation of the massacre, and most of the residents in the small town. After the arrest, he visited the two killers in prison and in the months that followed, he spent hundreds of hours with them. The unique story he was told became the documentary novel "In Cold Blood". The book came out in 1966, a year after the death sentence was executed. It was an international success and is considered one of the first examples of the genre True Crime.

While it is somewhat sensationalized by this "peeping", it also has an empathetic side. We want to know something about the people who cause suffering, about people suffering, and about the people who are trying to create some kind of order in the whole. And in the wake of a crime the really big themes in life up often show up: love and hate, betrayal and justice, guilt and atonement.

And it is undeniably fascinating to get a piece of insight into a sick mind, as Capote gives us in “In cold blood”. We are getting a little closer to answering the question most law-abiding citizens will ask them self when they hear about an incident like the one in Holcomb in 1959: How is it possible?

Many of the true crime successes of recent years have also had a clear critical look at prosecutors and the judiciary. "Making a Murderer" is just a recent example. In all these cases, some of those who are supposed to administer justice in our society, failed on the coarsest. Some have lied, been one-eyed or blind, have been cowardly and evasive - and at home on the couch in front of the TV, we feel pretty confident that we'd acted more heroic and truthful in a similar situation.

Jorn

HOLIDAY READING: from the Murder Is Everywhere crew

Zoë Sharp

The Christmas and New Year holiday season is an excellent time to settle down with a good book. As this is my last Murder Is Everywhere blog of 2015, I wanted to leave you with a holiday reading list. And as my fellow bloggers here are a fairly modest bunch, I respectfully offer their latest titles as being well worth your consideration.

Annamaria Alfieri – STRANGE GODS

In early 20th century British East Africa, there are rules for the British and rules for the Africans. Vera McIntosh, the daughter of Scottish missionaries, doesn't feel she belongs to either group; having grown up in Africa, she is not interested in being the well-bred Scottish woman her mother would like her to be. More than anything she dreams of seeing again the handsome police officer she's danced with. But more grisly circumstances bring Justin Tolliver to her family's home.

The body of Vera's uncle, Dr. Josiah Pennyman, is found with a tribesman’s spear in his back. Tolliver, an idealistic Assistant District Superintendent of Police, is assigned to the case. He first focuses on Gichinga Mbura, a Kikuyu medicine man who has been known to hatefully condemn Pennyman because Pennyman’s cures are increasingly preferred over his. But the spear belonged to the Maasai tribe, not Kikuyu, and it's doubtful Mbura would have used it to kill his enemy. Tolliver's superior wants him to arrest the medicine man and be done with it, but Tolliver pleads that he have the chance to prove the man's guilt. With the help of Kwai Libazo, a tribal lieutenant, Tolliver discovers that others had reasons to hate Pennyman as well, and the list of suspects grows.

This is a romantic and engaging mystery that captures the beauty and the danger of the African wild and the complexities of imposing a culture on a foreign land.

Cara Black – MURDER ON THE CHAMP DE MARS

The fifteenth title in the Aimée Leduc mystery series.

Paris, April 1999: Aimée Leduc has her work cut out for her—running her detective agency and fighting off sleep deprivation as she tries to be a good single mother to her new bébé. The last thing she has time for now is to take on a personal investigation for a poor manouche (Gypsy) boy. But he insists his dying mother has an important secret she needs to tell Aimée, something to do with Aimée’s father’s unsolved murder a decade ago. How can she say no?

The dying woman’s secret is even more dangerous than her son realized. When Aimée arrives at the hospital, the boy’s mother has disappeared. She was far too sick to leave on her own—she must have been abducted. What does she know that’s so important it’s worth killing for? And will Aimée be able to find her before it’s too late and the medication keeping her alive runs out?

Leighton Gage – THE WAYS OF EVIL MEN

Although Leighton Gage, one of the founders of this blog, passed away in 2013, his books continue to live on. The latest, published in 2014, was THE WAYS OF EVIL MEN, the seventh Chief Inspector Mario Silva investigation.

The Awana tribe, who live in the remote Amazon jungle in the Brazilian state of Pará, have dwindled to only 41 members—and now 39 of them have dropped dead of what looks like poison. The neighboring white townsfolk don’t seem to be mourning the genocide much—in fact, the only person who seems to care at all is Jade Calmon, the official tribal relations agent assigned to the area. She wants justice for the two survivors, a father and his 8-year-old son. But racism is deeply entrenched and no one is going to help her get to the truth.

Unfortunately, this is far from the first time the Brazilian federal police have had a tribal genocide to investigate. Chief Inspector Mario Silva and his team are sent in from Brasilia to try to solve the increasingly complex case just as a local white man is discovered murdered. Someone has done their best to frame the surviving Awana man, and the town is about to erupt.

Jørn Lier Horst – THE CAVEMAN

A William Wisting mystery

For four months Viggo Hansen's body has been sitting, undiscovered in front of his television, close to the home of Chief Inspector William Wisting. Has Norwegian society become so coarsened that no one cares? Wisting's journalist daughter, Line, wants to know. Wisting suspects a serial killer is at work, but for how long and across how many countries? When the CIA finally gets involved the stakes rise and tensions mount, until the final deadly race against time with Line's life at stake.

Sujata Massey – INDIA GRAY

Travel to the Indian subcontinent with a new collection of Sujata Massey’s suspenseful historical fiction. This book includes four works described below:

OUTNUMBERED AT OXFORD. When Perveen Mistry leaves Bombay to study law at St. Hilda’s College in 1919 Oxford, England, she hopes to escape her troubled past and become a pioneering woman lawyer. Then an elderly don tasks her with locating an Indian servant who may have stolen an invaluable mathematics proof. Perveen is caught in a case that threatens her ladylike reputation—and her life.

THE AYAH’S TALE. Menakshi Dutt, a teenaged nanny in 1920s Bengal, is a beloved caregiver of three lonely British children, but suffers from the cruelty of their bored mother. Will Menakshi ever fulfill her own dreams without betraying the children?

INDIA GRAY. Kamala Lewes, a recently-married Bengali woman, travels to Assam during World War II to volunteer at a military hospital. There she discovers some patients with ties to the Indian independence movement. How far can she go to help them without betraying her British husband and the Allies?

BITTER TEA. Shazia is fifteen and trapped in a remote village in Pakistan overtaken by religious fundamentalists. Her school has been closed, and women have lost freedom of movement. But when Shazia learns a friend faces danger from the invaders, she decides to act.

Four unforgettable heroines in one book rich with history, culture and intrigue.

Caro Ramsay – TEARS OF ANGELS

The latest in the Anderson and Costello series

Past crimes cause new murder in this tense and twisting psychological thriller A few days before the summer solstice a 92-year-old woman is found burned to death in her home. On the same day, a man's mutilated corpse is discovered in a field, his arms ripped from their sockets, a Tarot card depicting The Fool inserted in his mouth. When the victim is identified as someone for whom the police have been looking for almost a year, detectives Anderson and Costello find themselves caught up in a case where nothing is as it seems. Was the dead man really responsible for three child murders? And what is the connection with the death of the elderly woman? The investigation leads to the tranquil shores of Loch Lomond where Anderson and Costello will finally uncover the shocking truth.

Michael Stanley – A DEATH IN THE FAMILY

A Detective Kubu mystery

Faced with the violent death of his own father, even Assistant Superintendent David ‘Kubu’ Bengu, Botswana CID's keenest mind, is baffled. Who would kill such a frail old man? The picture becomes even murkier with the apparent suicide of a government official. Are Chinese mine-owners involved? And what role does the US Embassy have to play?

Set amidst the dark beauty of modern Botswana, A Death in the Family is a thrilling insight into a world of riots, corruption and greed, as a complex series of murders presents the opera-loving, wine connoisseur detective with his most challenging case yet. When grief-stricken Kubu defies orders to try to bring the killers to justice, startling and chilling links emerge, spanning the globe and setting a sequence of shocking events in motion. Will Kubu catch the killers in time … and find justice for his father?

Jeffrey Siger – DEVIL OF DELPHI

A Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis mystery

In ancient times, Delphi stood at the center of the world, a mountainous, verdant home to the gods, where kings and warriors journeyed to learn of their fates from its Oracle, and disobeyed its preaching at their peril.

In modern day Delphi, a young Athens émigré seeks to re-build his life in anonymity among its pastoral, rolling hills and endless olive groves. But the man's dark past is too celebrated, and his assassin skills are too much in demand for his fate to be left to his own hands.

When he's given no choice but to serve the ruthless aims of an international criminal mastermind, he agrees, but on his terms. His methods bring unexpected death to a member of one of Greece's most prominent and feared political families, and draws Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis into the eye of a political and media firestorm threatening to bring down the nation's government.

It is a gripping, fast-paced story played out against a backdrop of World Heritage Sites, an annual global trillion-dollar legitimate alcoholic beverage industry preyed upon by counterfeiters of the industries' most celebrated brands, and political infighting among Greek revolutionaries, movers and shakers. Kaldis and his team soon find themselves battling purveyors of life-threatening adulterated booze, struggling to bring a cold-blooded killer to justice, and laboring to outthink a political chess-master determined to destroy Kaldis' ailing boss, Greece's Minister of Public Order—all without turning themselves and their families into deadly targets.

Susan Spann – FLASK OF THE DRUNKEN MASTER

The latest entry in the thrilling 16th century Japanese mystery series, featuring ninja detective Hiro Hattori and Portuguese Jesuit Father Mateo

August 1565: When a rival artisan turns up dead outside Ginjiro’s brewery, and all the evidence implicates the brewer, master ninja Hiro Hattori and Portuguese Jesuit Father Mateo must find the killer before the magistrate executes Ginjiro and seizes the brewery, leaving his wife and daughter destitute. A missing merchant, a vicious debt collector, and a female moneylender join Ginjiro and the victim’s spendthrift son on the suspect list. But with Kyoto on alert in the wake of the shogun’s recent death, a rival shinobi on the prowl, and samurai threatening Hiro and Father Mateo at every turn, Ginjiro’s life is not the only one in danger.

Will Hiro and Father Mateo unravel the clues in time to save Ginjiro’s life, or will the shadows gathering over Kyoto consume the detectives as well as the brewer?

Zoë Sharp – FOX FIVE: a Charlie Fox short story collection

As for me, I’m working on new books as we speak, but for a limited time you can get the FOX FIVE anthology (or should that be e-thology?) of stories all featuring ex-Special Forces soldier turned self-defence expert and bodyguard, Charlie Fox, and all absolutely FREE.

Four of the stories have been published elsewhere in highly-praised anthologies and prestigious outlets such as Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. The final story was written specially for this anthology.

In 'A Bridge Too Far', we meet Charlie before she’s become a professional in the world of close protection. When she agrees to hang out with the local Dangerous Sports Club, she has no idea it will soon live up to its name.

'Postcards From Another Country' has Charlie guarding the ultra-rich Dempsey family against attempted assassination − no matter where the danger lies.

A finalist for the CWA Short Story Dagger, 'Served Cold' puts another tough woman centre stage − the mysterious Layla, with betrayal in her past and murder in her heart.

'Off Duty' finds Charlie taking time away from close protection after injury. She still finds trouble, even in an out-of-season health spa in the Catskill Mountains.

'Truth And Lies' is a 11,500-word tale in which Charlie has to single-handedly extract a news team from a rapidly escalating war zone.

Also included: Excerpt from KILLER INSTINCT: Charlie Fox book one, Meet Charlie Fox, Meet Zoë Sharp, info on the other books in the Charlie Fox series.

Bonus material includes an excerpt from KILLER INSTINCT and a taster of each of the ten books in the Charlie Fox series to date.

This week’s Word of the Week is facetiae, which means both pornographic literature, and humorous or witty sayings. It first came into use in the 16^th century, from the Latin plural of facetia 'jest', from facetus 'witty'.

Police inspector Kurt Wallander

by Jorn Lier Horst, Norway

The series about police inspector Kurt Wallander counts twelve books. The fifth woman and One step after, respectively book 6 and 7, are two of my personal favorites.

In "The Fifth Woman" Inspector Kurt Wallander is baffled and appalled by two murders. Holger Eriksson, a retired car dealer and bird watcher, is impaled on sharpened bamboo poles in a ditch behind his secluded home, and the body of a missing florist is discovered--strangled and tied to a tree. It quickly becomes clear that the same person is responsible.

The book has become a favourite because it is perhaps here Henning Mankell lets us get real close to Wallander. The relationship with the people around him is reeling. He has difficulties in adapting socially with colleagues at work. He does not understand his daughter Linda. His relations with his ex-wife is strained. He can not get along with his elderly father and he is unsure about his relationship with his girlfriend in Riga. In addition to this is his health shrinking. With opera music on the stereo, he sits in the apartment in Mariagatan and speculating on whether to join the police was the right choice.

"One step behind" is a favourite simply because it is the best book in the series. On Midsummer’s Eve, three role-playing teens dressed in eighteenth-century garb are shot in a secluded Swedish meadow. When one of Inspector Kurt Wallander’s most trusted colleagues–someone whose help he hoped to rely on to solve the crime–also turns up dead, Wallander knows the murders are related. But with his only clue a picture of a woman no one in Sweden seems to know, he can’t begin to imagine how. Reeling from his own father’s death and facing his own deteriorating health, Wallander tracks the lethal progress of the killer. Locked in a desperate effort to catch him before he strikes again, Wallander always seems to be just one step behind.

Both books are crime novels written with a pronounced political indignation, social care and psychological interest. Mankell writes from a politically left-wing and shares his vision of the world with us. His political indignation is facing the Swedish welfare system defects - against a social system that promises to be protective and inclusive, but still fail so many of its inhabitants.

The books reflect the reality we live in. A world that is becoming tougher and more violent. The policeman Kurt Wallander is a reflection on how the negative development affects us all.

I met Henning Mankell first time under the big book fair in Gothenburg in 2009. Then I felt already that I knew him. Eighteen years earlier, he had published the first book about police inspector Kurt Wallander. I read it the first year I went to the Police Academy and thought then that this was what I wanted with my education. I wanted to be a policeman like Kurt Wallander. Get me right: Not a disillusioned, sometimes bitter, argumentative, divorced and bold detective with an unhealthy lifestyle, but an investigator with conscience, integrity and humanity that believes that he can help to create a better world - a cop who could make a difference.

Kurt Wallander is no gritty cop. He responds to danger with lowered shoulders and with a numbing feeling that he faces is more than he can handle.

He solves cases through painstaking and what is called traditional police work. Trying to illuminate them from different sides, trying to find connections. But he also has an exceptionally intuitive trait. Through listening to an inner voice he pulls up threads from something he initially did not notice - a replica, an image, an insignificant detail that has stuck in the subconscious. A detail beyond the expected, irregularities and exceptions that may not have something to do with the case, but that turns out to lead to something.

”

Henning Mankell 1948-2015

Being alive has its time, being dead has its own,” is an incantation that followed Wallander from when he as 23 years old were patrolling the streets of his hometown of Malmo and was stabbed by a drunken man. We find the mantra again in One step after, where Mankell uses Wallander to reflect on how all things have become worse around him. How violence has increased and intensified and that Sweden has become a country with an increasing number of closed doors.

On the 5th of October 2015, Henning Mankell dies at the age of 67 years. He left a world that is darker than when he entered it.

I will remember Henning Mankell as a spacious and wise mystery writer who used the genre to take up important questions in contemporary life.

Bragging

The Crimefest international convention of crime writing is coming up next month in Bristol, England.  Though I will not be there in person, I will in spirit.  It pains me to be miss the charming company of my blogmates past and present.

As at most of such gatherings, awards will be given in many categories.  This year, at Crimefest, two MIE bloggers, one current, one emerita, are shortlisted for a prestigious prize.  Here is the text from the announcement:

“PETRONA AWARD

The Petrona Award is presented independently from the CRIMEFEST Awards at the convention’s Gala Awards Dinner. The award is for best Scandinavian crime novel of the year. It was established in memory of Maxine Clarke who – using the pen name Petrona – was one of the first online crime fiction reviewers and bloggers. Passionate about translated crime fiction, she particularly loved novels from Scandinavian countries. The winner receives a commemorative award and a Full Weekend Pass for CRIMEFEST 2016 where he or she is invited to appear on a panel.

Nominees:

- Jørn Lier Horst for Closed For Winter, translated by Anne Bruce (Sandstone Press)

- Arnaldur Indriðason for Strange Shores, translated by Victoria Cribb (Harvill Secker)

- Håkan Nesser for The Weeping Girl, translated by Laurie Thompson (Mantle)

- Leif G W Persson for Linda, As In The Linda Murder, translated by Neil Smith (Doubleday)

- Yrsa Sigurðardóttir for Someone To Watch Over Me, translated by Philip Roughton (Hodder & Stoughton)

- Jan Costin Wagner for Light In A Dark House, translated by Anthea Bell (Harvill Secker)”

KUDOS TO YRSA AND JØRN!!  We are all so proud of you both.  I only wish I could be there to cheer you on.

MIE rules say we shouldn’t engage in shameless self-promotion except when we have a new book launching.  But nothing prevents me from bragging about the sterling company I have the privilege of keeping.  So for those who have not read the books in question, here they are:

The second William Wisting mystery to be translated into English, after the successful Dregs. Ove Bakkerud, newly separated and extremely disillusioned, is looking forward to a final quiet weekend at his summer home before closing for winter but, when the tourists leave, less welcome visitors arrive. Bakkerud's cottage is ransacked by burglars. Next door he discovers the body of a man who has been beaten to death. Police Inspector William Wisting has witnessed grotesque murders before, but the desperation he sees in this latest murder is something new. Against his wishes his daughter Line decides to stay in one of the summer cottages at the mouth of the fjord.

A creepy, compelling thriller, SOMEONE TO WATCH OVER ME is the fifth Thora Gudmundsdottir novel from Yrsa, 'Iceland's answer to Stieg Larsson' (Daily Telegraph). A young man with Down's Syndrome has been convicted of burning down his care home and killing five people, but a fellow inmate at his secure psychiatric unit has hired Thora to prove Jakob is innocent. If he didn't do it, who did? And how is the multiple murder connected to the death of Magga, killed in a hit and run on her way to babysit? A creepy, compelling thriller, SOMEONE TO WATCH OVER ME is the fifth Thora Gudmundsdottir novel.

HUZZAH!

Annamaria - Monday