Imitation of a Dark Blond

Annamaria on Hiatus


Though I never go anywhere near Dallas if I can help it, and I was not at Bouchercon this year, I am cashing in my B'con hiatus raincheck today because I am with a few thousand words of the end of a first draft of my WIP.  I cannot stop now, friends.  So I am sending an alter-ego to take my place..



Bjorn Leggo-Saab, standing in again - this time for Annamaria whose mind is otherwise occupied.

A fragment from my upcoming London Times bestseller: The Laughing Faceless Detective With the Frost Tattoo.

Dedicated

to

Everett Kaser

who, like me, lives in a gloomy place.

I rubbed my eyes, trying to force the image outside the car window to come into focus.

            I wished I had stayed with goop.  But it was illegal. The sticky, black-brown paste my brother cooked up in his lab at the university every Friday afternoon had had its base in hashish.  Hagar had spread it, still warm enough to be soft, onto cigarette papers, which we rolled and smoked.  Hagar had given it its American name—goop.

It lighted me up.

            If I could take a few hits on goop right now, this bleak landscape would assume the aspect of a brilliant minimalist painting. Even in this relentlessly somber light, where the color of the sky exactly matched the wet concrete pavement.

            If I were high on goop, this thin strip of blue water between the endless bands of grey would take on gleaming intensity.  Painful because it was the shade of Sigrid's eyes.  It reminded me of death.  One death I could not stop. And all the deaths I could not stop investigating.  Not even goop, with its silly American name—silly like all Americans—could erase my agony.

            It had, in the end, taken away Hagar's passion—his work at the university. He had been shamed into resigning.  "For using his laboratory to manufacture a banned substance," the letter from the Department Rector had said.  Hagar had taken his own life.

            I did not.  Coward that I am, I had turned to a weaker, but the only legal means of dulling my pain.  Drink.

            And so I never drive.  I look out the window while my partner drives us to the investigation of yet another death.  And I rub my drunken eyes.  And I try to bring into focus that thin stripe of blue between the interminable bands of grey.  And try not to see in it the color of Sigrid's eyes.

            "I think it's the next turning on the left," Nils said.  "Can you see the spinning light of the squad car through the mist?"

            I could not. "Yes," I said.


BTW, if you want an alternative to gloomy Scandanavia, here is a great suggestion:

The phenomenon

by Jorn Lier Horst, Norway

This weekend I participate at CrimeFest in Bristol. In one of the panels we will talk about Nordic crime. I often end up in such a panel, talking about the phenomenon of Nordic Noir.

CrimeFest in Bristol

Nordic Noir is recent expression, but the Nordic method of telling crime stories is fifty years old. The Swedish novelists Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, with their policeman Martin Beck, created a unique genre in the mid-sixties that marked the start of a global literary fairy tale. Their books broke with the established norms of delivering pure entertainment. Social criticism and existential dilemmas were interwoven into the crime format, and the genre distanced itself from other mass-produced formula literature. The distinction between so-called ‘highbrow’ and ‘lowbrow’ forms of literature became more diffuse, and the crime novel gained admittance to the same market as other serious literary fiction.

In 1991, Henning Mankell wrote his first book about Kurt Wallander, eventually expanding this to a series of novels still making its way triumphantly around the globe. Barely a decade later, the world was introduced to Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist through Stieg Larsson’s outstanding Millenium Trilogy. The English edition of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo sold more than 2.2 million copies in the UK, allocating it thirteenth place in the list of bestselling books ever in that country. Since then, this success has been crowned by Jo Nesbo’s impressive breakthrough with millions of books sold in almost fifty countries.

Sjöwall and Wahlöö, Mankell, Larsson and Nesbo are authors who, over a long period and at various points in time, have written books of exceptional quality, thus opening the doors to Nordic crime for the rest of the world.

In addition to the authors have a number of different participants contributed to the phenomenon:  publishers, literary agents, critics, enthusiasts and an enormous marketing apparatus have worked together to create increased interest in crime literature from the Nordic countries, ensuring that Nordic Noir has become an expression not only widely recognised but also with real resonance. However, everyone who works with books is aware that enthusiasm and generous marketing budgets do not in themselves create the big bestsellers. In order for a book to become a worldwide phenomenon, something else has to happen: each and every individual reader has to become passionate about it. They have to recommend the book to their aunt, their neighbour, and their workmate. And in order for that to happen, the reading experience has to be more than sheer entertainment.

Jørn

The literary rebus

by Jorn Lier Horst, Norway

Why do we read crime? The question pops up in the Norwegian media periodically, just as the statistics of this year's best-selling books or the libraries most borrowed books are presented. And it is a good question. Why do we let ourselves be entertained by what we otherwise deplore? Why do we love cruelness in fiction?

The genre's popularity is difficult to explain. It has been claimed that it is linked with a society characterized by pace, new online media, superficial reality shows and gossip magazines that provide literature with increasingly tighter conditions. A development due to the fact that we live in a time that is characterized by entertainment and a general tendency to flattening and stultification as a result.

I think the reason for the popularity is more complex than that, and that crime is more than superficial entertainment.

The Famous five

The Crime genre has always attracted me. Ever since my dad sat at my bedside and read Donald Duck comics to me. The stories of Mickey Mouse with Goofy as his sidekick were those I liked best. Later I read the series about The Famous Five, the Hardy Boys and other stories with enigmatic mysteries. These books had their own vitality that pulled me in and let me be part of an exciting journey. The literary rebus attracted me.

Martin Beck mysteries

When I became older and read books by authors like Sjöwall and Wahlöö, Henning Mankell and Gunnar Staalesen I realized that books of this genre also offered something more than an exciting and riveting story. These books broke with the established norms of delivering pure entertainment. Social criticism and existential dilemmas were interwoven into the crime format, and the genre distanced itself from other mass-produced formula literature. The distinction between so-called ‘highbrow’ and ‘lowbrow’ forms of literature became more diffuse, and the crime novel today has gained admittance to the same market as other serious literary fiction in Norway.

But the social concern of the authors does not provide a good answer to why so many readers prefer crime.

Local newspaper: Young man died after blind violence

I think I came closer to an answer in an airport last summer. I met a woman I had not seen in five years. In 2009 I led the investigation of the murder of her brother. He was beaten to death during an argument at a local pub. It was a simple investigation. The pub’s CCTV cameras filmed everything. The hardest task was the dialogue with the relatives and the bereaved. The one who took the death hardest was the sister of the deceased. I spent hours in conversation with her. Last summer I met her again when I was on my way to New York. She came up to me in the departure hall and dragged my latest novel out of her bag. She had bought it in the airport shop and wondered if I could sign it. As I did so, she told how much joy she had found in my books. I could not hide my surprise that she, who had experienced her own brother being killed, could find pleasure in reading a crime novel. She told me that she read crime to unwind from everyday life. In the couch she could sit on a comfortable distance from the ghoulish. Crime books pulled her into something exciting and made her, for a while, able to forget everything around her.

I think the joy of crime books have to do with this, and that we all have an inherent force that seeks equilibrium and clarity in the face of mysteries. In the novel we meet a protagonist who creates order in the chaos. He gets us to understand the incomprehensible and create justice out of injustice. The crime novel can give us an answer in our quest for the truth - whether it's about who did what or why. It's all about finding the solution to a riddle; the investigator must restore an order that has been disturbed, and I think that such a restoration of law and order has an appeal to the reader in our chaotic world. 


Jorn Lier Horst

The escape from reality

by Jorn Lier Horst

I am a new member of this blog and write from Norway, one of the remotest corners of the globe. Or, let me correct that, I am not completely new here. I have previously been a guest blogger when I revealed The Secret of Nordic Noir.

So, let me use this first blog post to introduce myself and my writing. I am 44 years old and am married to Beate. Together, we have a son of 18 and a daughter of 13, as well as the dog Teodor. We live in the small coastal town of Larvik, which is located 105 km (65 miles) south west of Oslo.

Faithful companion, Teodor

Until the autumn of 2013 I worked as chief investigator of police in Vestfold, a police district with 450 employees serving a population of approximately 250 000 inhabitants. Experiences from this real police work has, in many ways, shaped me as a human being, and traces of that are visible in my books. My work as a chief investigator allowed me to go behind the barrier tapes and to walk among the remains and traces of severe crimes. See the aftermath of a relentless struggle. Stepping into rooms that have been closed yet contain unexplored secrets. That’s where I like to bring readers. 

I've written nine novels about police inspector William Wisting. Four of them are translated into English. The last of them, The Caveman, is out February 19. And please bear with me on this blog. English is not my first language. I write my books in Norwegian, but I blog with the English I learned at school.

My work as an investigator of murders and other serious crimes has taught me a lot about death, but even more about life. I have met crime victims and their families, and for many years it was also my job to talk with those who had carried out those crimes, to interrogate the perpetrators. Standing face to face with other peoples' anger, grief, despair and remorse has been invaluable to me. It helps me to create an authentic nerve running through my current books and in my books to come.

Crime is about the world we see around us. The stories of murder and crimes arising out of social injustice and social misery that we can all recognize ourselves in. I think that crime literature has its own ability to function as a mirror of society. The genre tends to confront society with itself. It provides these books with an intrinsic value and quality far beyond just making a flight a little shorter. To open a book, is to open a world of possibilities: Opportunities for new experiences, new discoveries and new insights. Reading and literature can give us knowledge and overview. The more we read, the more we know. And the more we know, the more questions we can ask. In addition to enable us to understand reality better, literature might also give us the opportunity to escape from reality.

Jorn Lier Horst

The Secret of Nordic Noir

A couple of weeks ago, I was the moderator of a panel at the wonderful Crimefest convention in Bristol, England.  One of the pleasures of being a moderator - and certainly one of the main reasons I so enjoy being one - is that I get to read books I probably wouldn't come across.  This year was no exception.

Today I have the great pleasure of introducing to you another terrific writer from Scandinavia - Jørn Lier Horst from the land of one of my grandmothers - Norway.  The book I read and thoroughly enjoyed was CLOSED FOR WINTER - the seventh of nine stories featuring William Wisting, chief inspector of police and head of the Criminal Investigation department at Larvik police station.  As with so many of the Scandinavian stories, not only is there an interesting and entertaining mystery to solve, but there is also an undertone of important social issues.

Jørn knows what he writes about because he, too, was a police officer, a Senior Investigating Officer.

Today he is widely recognized as one of Norway´s premier crime writers, and is the recently winner of the Glass Key award for the best Nordic Crime Novel. He made his debut in 2004 with a novel based on a true murder story. 

One of the things that struck me about Jørn as a panelist was how thoughtful his responses were both to my questions and to those from the audience.  It is clear that he took his job as a policeman very seriously, and now approaches his job as a writer in the same vein.

I highly recommend his books and am sure you will enjoy them as much as I did.

His website is www.jlhorst.com.

Before I ask you to welcome Jørn to Murder is Everywhere, I have to show you some pictures of his home country.  I just can't resist.

Stan - Thursday

________________________________________

Four months ago, I found myself sitting at a roadside tea stall in Jaipur, India. As the noise and smells assailed me, it felt quite natural to ask: what on earth am I doing here? What are my books doing here? All the way from a small country called Norway, to a large continent called India!

The Jaipur Literature Festival 2014 was just one of the planned stops on my spring tour, where one of the themes — Crime and Punishment — focused on Nordic crime fiction. This genre’s enormous impact is paradoxical: the Nordic countries, decidedly among the most peaceful and secure places on the globe, have produced writers who have captivated readers the world over with their depictions of brutality and murder. I’m not the only one to wonder how that could have come about. What’s the secret of Nordic Noir?

In my increasingly frequent encounters with foreign readers of crime fiction, I believe I’ve come closer to an answer to that enigma. Nordic crime novels are usually considered more sophisticated than, for example, American thrillers. Readers comment that they have found our crime novels to be more than just narratives about crime. They are fascinated by what we might call ‘Nordic melancholy’, concocted from winter darkness, midnight sun, and immense, desolate landscapes. The taciturn, slightly uncommunicative heroes are lone wolves living in a barren, cold part of the world, constantly on an uncompromising pursuit of truth and clarity. What’s more, the entire idea of paradise lost is a prominent feature of Nordic crime: the social-democratic efficient society attacked from within by violence, corruption and homicide.

As far as Nordic crime heroes are concerned, I believe they are primarily distinguished by their single-mindedness and their rebellion against authority in all its facets. In addition, a great deal of space is given to the protagonist’s private life. In a crime series, readers can follow their heroes through different phases as they age and alter.

The numerous Nordic small towns presented as scenes of literary murders do not perhaps provide obvious settings for crime stories. The beautiful scenery inspires picturesque enticing descriptions of nature. But the attraction lies in the contrast between these peaceful small-town communities in their attractive settings and the brutal violent action taking place there.

The authors too are drawing attention to a social system that makes promises about protection and inclusion, but nevertheless fails many of its citizens. The crime novel has proved to be an excellent tool for revealing corruption in society, greed and misuse of power. The best Nordic crime writers use their work as an instrument of social criticism to create a new political awareness in their readers. Their stories wrest us from complacent notions of our society’s excellence and instead plant seeds of unease that makes it difficult to accept current conditions and increasingly forces us to modify our view of those who turn to crime, why they do so and what motivates them.

This characteristic of Nordic crime novels gives them a special earnestness, distinguishing them from other genre fiction and ensuring that their readers do not forget the book’s content and import after the final page is read.

The expression Nordic Noir is recent, but the Nordic method of telling crime stories is almost 50 years old. In the mid-1960s, novelists Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö marked the start of a unique genre with their policeman Martin Beck. Their books broke the established norms of pure entertainment. Social criticism and existential dilemmas were interwoven into the crime format, and the distinction between so-called ‘highbrow’ and ‘lowbrow’ forms of literature became more diffuse. The crime novel gained admittance to the same market as other serious literary fiction.

In 1991, Henning Mankell wrote his first book about Kurt Wallander and eventually expanded this to a series still making its way triumphantly around the globe. Barely a decade later came Stieg Larsson’s outstanding Millenium Trilogy. This success has been crowned by Jo Nesbo’s impressive breakthrough with millions of books sold in almost 50 countries.

Nordic crime novels vary when it comes to description of landscape, characters, language, plot and action but are regarded as relatively uniform by the readers, as the writers share a common history and tradition, and have several external features in common as far as social structure, welfare, political system and values are concerned.

So to answer the question: Why has Nordic crime fiction made such a powerful international impact? These novels possess the ability to imitate real life with originality and elegance, with linguistic precision and psychological depth while simultaneously telling an exciting and compelling story.

Thank you.

I Quit -- A Guest Post From James Thompson

We've been lucky to have Jim Thompson as a regular guest here on MURDER IS EVERYWHERE.

Jim, for those few of you who might not yet know it, is Finland's best and most popular representative in the field of Nordic Noir.

His first book, SNOW ANGELS was selected as one of BOOKLIST'S Best Crime Novel Debuts of the Year. His second, LUCIFER'S TEARS, was chosen as one of the Best Novels of the Year by Kirkus. And you still have time, if you haven't yet done so, to read the excellent HELSINKI WHITE before he launches this one:

HELSINKI BLOOD will be the fourth in the Inspector Kari Vaara series. It goes on sale, in North America, on the 21st of March and is already up for pre-order on Amazon.

You can do so, and read about it, by clicking this link: http://www.amazon.com/Helsinki-Blood-Inspector-Vaara-Novel/dp/039915888X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1352673639&sr=1-1&keywords=helsinki+blood

Here, and elsewhere, Jim has been doing a series of posts on the subject of Finnish racism.

But no more.

He just quit.

And he tells us why in the post below.

Cara - Tuesday

I Quit

When I started writing a series of articles discussing the feelings of disenfranchised immigrants, I was so naïve that I thought raising public awareness was a good thing, that it would be viewed as I intended, an attempt at fulfilling a social responsibility. I had no idea it would generate such anger. But it did, and so, in an attempt to be fair and objective, I presented the other side of the coin, the views of “critics of immigration.”

A coordinated attack was launched against me on their website, Homma Forum. This despite the fact that I agree with many of their policies concerning Finland’s relationship to the international community. I simply dislike racist rhetoric. The discussion concerning me has been viewed by well over 4000 readers. I had no idea so many people would be interested in me. Hmmm. Should I be flattered?

I was heartened today to see that the latest posts focus on my novels, rather than attacking me personally. A rather lengthy commentary was published that discussed two of my novels. The verdict: I am possibly the worst writer ever born. I’m more than fine with that. The man exercised his right to free speech and is entitled to hate my work as much as he likes. In fact, I was thrilled. It appears that most people on that site who are rambling on about how much my writing sucks have never read any of my novels. At least the man took the trouble to read my work before voicing an opinion about it. I respect that.

I do wish that readers would recognize that I’m a noir writer, and the events and attitudes expressed in my novels are genre appropriate, that writing noir set in Finland doesn’t mean that I view Finland as a violent, corrupt, and dangerous place to live, any more than James Ellroy’s noir writing means that he hates America and in particular, Los Angeles. Folks, it’s fiction. After fifteen years here, Finland is my home, I’m happy here. The culture suits my personality better than anywhere I lived in America ever did. But that’s neither here nor there, and I’m digressing.

My mistake was believing that the public at large is interested in the welfare of all—that an objective examination of the situation from differing viewpoints might be valued. That was idealistic bullshit. I made a mistake and learned a lesson. It isn’t wanted or valued. To not take a side is to be the enemy of all. I offered Perussuomalaiset/Basic Finns a guest blog, and because I’m a man of my word, if they wish, I will honor it, without comment from me.

I view no one as an enemy and don’t want there to be a perception that I do, and so I will write no more about this subject. My views aren’t wanted or needed. There will be no thoughtful discourse. Minds are made up and hate from both sides will reign for another generation. If it makes you happy, go ahead and hate your brains out. You’ll see no more essays about it from me.

I quit.