Multiple chances to see Jo Nesbo in New Zealand next March

Earlier this month I shared the terrific news that Norwegian crime writing superstar Jo Nesbo would one of the authors appearing in Wellington in March next year as part of the the 2012 New Zealand Arts Festival's "Writers and Readers Week". That should be a fantastic festival, filled with terrific event showcasing several other crime writers (including Denise Mina, and some yet-to-be-announced New Zealand authors) and other interesting authors. Nesbo is visiting New Zealand to promote his new Harry Hole thriller, PHANTOM, as well as the release of the film adaptation of his standalone thriller HEADHUNTERS.

Now, I'm very pleased to reveal that Nesbo not just be visiting Wellington, but in fact will be doing multiple events around New Zealand in March 2012, allowing many keen crime readers an opportunity to meet this talented storyteller. According to his publisher, Random House, who are "delighted" about his visit, there will be a Nesbo event and movie premiere held on the same evening in each of the following locations:

• Tuesday, 6 March - AUCKLAND
• Wednesday, 7 March - CHRISTCHURCH
• Thursday, 8 March - WANAKA
• Saturday, 10 March – WELLINGTON (presented as part of the New Zealand International Arts Festival)

Further details about each event will be announced in due course. But for now, it's just great to see that plenty of people will get a chance to meet Nesbo. It's really good to see international crime writers of his and Mina's calibre coming all the way down here to New Zealand, promoting the genre, and supporting our burgeoning crime fiction scene.

THE PHANTOM will be released in New Zealand on 3 February, and marks the return of Nesbo's popular detective Harry Hole. Here's the publisher's blurb:

Summer. A boy is lying on the floor of an Oslo apartment. He is bleeding and will soon die. In order to place his life and death in some kind of context he begins to tell his story. Outside, the church bells toll.

Autumn. Former police inspector Harry Hole returns to Oslo after three years abroad. He seeks out his old boss at Police Headquarters to request permission to investigate a homicide.

But the case is already closed: the young junkie was in all likelihood shot dead by a fellow addict. Yet, Harry is granted permission to visit the boy’s alleged killer in jail. There, he meets himself and his own history. What follows is the solitary investigation of what appears to be the first impossible case in Harry Hole’s career. And while Harry is searching, the murdered boy continues his story.

A man walks the dark streets of Oslo. The streets are his and he has always been there. He is a phantom.
 
Have you read any of Jo Nesbo's thrillers? What do you think of Harry Hole as a 'hero'? Are you looking forward to the film adaptation of HEADHUNTERS?

Q & A with Mons Kallentoft (MIDWINTER SACRIFICE)

One of the great things about being a crime fiction reviewer is that I get sent books from authors I might not have otherwise tried - and some end up becoming new favourites. Over the past two and a half years I've 'discovered' many such new-to-me authors, some through my own experimenting (just trying new books from the stores or libraries), and others from publicists who've recommended someone new-to-me, to me.

Recently I received a review copy of MIDWINTER SACRIFICE by Mons Kallentoft, another exceptional writer being noticed now as part of the ever-growing Scandinavian crime wave. Whatever you think of Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy, one great thing about it is it has opened the wider reading world's eyes to the talented crime writers in Scandinavia (many of whom were already big successes at home and in other non-English speaking nations pre-Larsson mania), and led to more Scandinavian crime fiction being translated into English, for all of us keen crime readers to enjoy.

MIDWINTER SACRIFICE is Kallentoft's fourth novel, but his first foray into crime fiction. It's always fascinating to see published writers, who've written in other styles or genres, turning their hand to crime fiction. Published in Sweden in 2007, it has been a bestseller, and has now been translated into several languages. It introduces Malin Fors, a single mother  and the most talented and ambitious detective on the local police force. Kallentoft has since written four more Malin Fors tales (MIDWINTER SACRIFICE is the first to be translated into English). The books are set in his childhood hometown of Linkoping, Sweden.

I will soon be doing a 9mm interview with Kallentoft, but in the meantime I thought you might enjoy this recent Q&A session his publisher has sent through to me:

Linkoping: how does it fit into your life?
It’s an average Swedish town where I grew up, and where I moved away from as soon as I could. I left at 20, so it is a huge part of me, and writing the stories helped me to reconnect to my childhood and young adulthood.

Would you live there again?

You can’t actually run away from who you are. In one of my earlier books I wrote about it, but it is only possible to go back in my books. These stories are like echoes from that era and I can look back and work out a lot of things and emotions.

Mercy in an author?

Mercy? No. To write you have to be merciless. You can’t turn away when the story gets too dark and scary. You have to keep going. I find the books very emotional to write because I can’t get away with side-stepping the hard bits.

Why is your main character a girl?
I was trying to do something a bit different and I talked with my wife about it. Most detectives are middle-aged and jaded, and we thought a young woman in the middle of her working life would be a good place to start. I do talk about her with my wife when I get stuck on the emotional side of things, but I reckon I know her pretty well by now – and she is definitely NOT my wife! In fact she is more like me – her frustrations with small town life come directly from my own experience.

How many other countries are you published in?
My books are now in 22 languages and I have been to many of the countries involved. I have yet to go to Romania, but I travel a lot – so one day I will!

Your first books?
They were set in Madrid and Brussels – all over the place – and I wrote about what I saw and the people I watched. They weren’t really crime novels, but they touched on the dark side of life. It was when I started to write about Linkoping that crime seemed the right genre for me!

Awards?
Pesetas was my first novel, and won the Swedish equivalent of your Whitbread Award. For a debut. The book came from the year I spent in Madrid. I also wrote a non-fiction travel and food book, Food Noir, which won a travel award. I’d like to do another one of those as I have a lot of material ready and waiting. I only need the time to do it!

How many books altogether?
Five Malin Fors novels, one travel, and novels set in Stockholm, where I live now, Belgium and Spain. If the house burned down, I’d save one called Fresh, Healthy and Spontaneous (that title is a bit of a mouthful!). It’s about a branding expert and his views on life and family, about how he applies branding strategy to manage all the details of his life. It’s a black black black comedy.

Seasons and the weather and the part they play?
I had the idea that crime novels benefit from easy symbols for the reader to catch hold of. So I have written the seasons into the Malin Fors novels. The cold is an easy way to reach people, on one level it represents the cold inside all mankind … it runs through all the characters too – emotionally and figuratively cold. I also like to give the books the feel of different colours and sounds. Midwinter Sacrifice, for instance, is icy and blue – and it is quite a silent book because the sounds are muted by the winter and snow. My Summer book (ed - "SUMMERTIME DEATH" - pictured right) has much more noise. Using seasons also gives me a tight framework for the stories. Like a Greek drama – it is all very contained!

The translation?
My English translator, Neil Smith, is excellent. He is not the first to try my books, but he is the best. It’s so hard to get it right, and he seems to capture the tone and voices in them.

Mountain or valley?
Mountain

River or Sea?
Sea

Best food?
In the Basque area of northern Spain. It is without doubt the best food in the world.

Favourite book?
The Great Gatsby. It’s perfect in every sense – form, character, plot and creation. I love reading it – every time. And also Cormac McCarthy’s book Blood Meridian.

Favourite film?
That is a really hard one. The French Connection I think. I also love those slow, stylish, mystery thrillers you can just sink into.

Favourite city?
Madrid, Hong Kong, Sydney, Bangkok … Macau because of its sense of the underbelly

Have you read MIDWINTER SACRIFICE, or any other Mons Kallentoft books? If not, do they sound intriguing? What do you think of his Q&A? Comments welcome.

Beyond Stieg: two of the world's best crime commentators discuss Scandinavian crime fiction

Back in mid 2009 I wrote a large feature on the rise of Swedish crime writing for Good Reading, a great books-focused magazine in Australia. Entitled "Hot Crime Writing in a Cold Land" (first two pages pictured right), it looked at the history and evolution of Swedish crime fiction, beyond the Stieg Larsson phenomena that was sweeping the world at the time (and has continued to do so, seemingly unabated since).

In the article I noted that while Larsson had topped the the 2008/2009 Wischenbart survey (which analysed bestselling authors of all types across seven major European markets), beating out the likes of Stephanie Meyer's Twilight series, he was only the tip of the Swedish crime iceberg; six other Swedish crime writers were in the Top 40, and many others were hovering. The surveyors, who conduct various analyses for the global publishing industry, even specifically noted the “predominance of Swedish (crime) fiction which has been out competing any other flavour or origin of fictional writing”. Not just out-competing any other type of crime writing - out competing any other type of fiction altogether.

It's funny - at the time I thought that I was a bit late on the piece, but since then more and more and more and more publications around the world have jumped on the Swedish crime bandwagon, and the train shows no real signs of slowing - although there are some signs of Scandinavian crime fatigue (or Larsson fatigue, at least) in some quarters.

 Now acclaimed British reviewer and crime fiction commentator Barry Forshaw is working on a book, Death in a Cold Climate: Scandinavian Crime Fiction, due for release next year. For those who don't know, Forshaw is one of the UK's best known crime critics, editor of Crime Time magazine and former Vice-Chair of the Crime Writers' Association, and has penned several crime fiction-related books, including British Crime Writing: An Encyclopaedia, and The Rough Guide to Crime Fiction. I for one am curious at to what such an esteemed researcher, critic and commentator has to say about the rise of Scandinavian crime - apparently it will be quite the authoritative survey of the sub-genre.

But you don't have to wait until next year to get some taste of what Forshaw thinks - in a recent Kirkus Reviews interview with US crime critic Jeff K. Pierce, editor of January Magazine and The Rap Sheet, Forshaw shares some of his thoughts on crime fiction's insights into Scandinavian society, the history of Nordic crime writing, the Swedish dominance, and more.

You can read Forshaw's Kirkus Reviews interview with Jeff Pierce here, and also some further discussion between the pair on the topic at The Rap Sheet, here. In relation to the social commentary often threaded throughout Nordic crime, Forshaw says: "The analysis of society freighted into the novels is more forensic and detailed than in the crime fiction of virtually any other country, even within the orbit of such mordant social critics as the writers James Lee Burke [in America] and Val McDermid [in Britain]."

Do you agree? Have you read any Nordic crime fiction? Who are your favourite Scandinavian crime writers? Is there something special about the sub-genre, or has it become merely a marketing/popularity snowball?

The excitement of opening a book you've really been looking forward to...

Who are your favourite authors? You know, the ones you can't wait to get around to reading, whether their latest book, or an older one you hadn't yet read? How exciting is it to have a book from one of those authors in your hands? And what about those authors or books you've heard great things about, but haven't yet experienced? How cool is it to 'discover', for yourself, a new-to-you author that you really, really enjoy?

Reading is a wonderful thing, but some books and some authors can create a level of anticipation more than others - based on our own preferences and reading experiences/history etc. I love reading crime fiction, but will admit that although the act of starting every new-to-me crime novel I open is cool, there are always some books that excite more than others, even before you've turned to the opening page. Books that beckon you from your TBR pile, promising much, and whetting your appetite well ahead of time. Of course some of these books deliver on their promise and anticipation, and some don't.

Today I finally started a book that I've been meaning to get to for a fair while; RED WOLF by Liza Marklund. Only a few chapters in, I'm already enjoying it greatly - and looking forward to seeing how it evolves over the next 400 plus pages. Here's a backcover-style blurb:

AN ACCIDENTAL DEATH? Reporter Annika Bengtzon is working on the story of a devastating crime when she hears that a journalist investigating the same incident has been killed. It appears to be a hit-and-run accident.

A SERIES OF MURDERS. Several brutal killings follow - all linked by handwritten letters sent to the victims' relatives. When Annika unravels a connection with the story she's writing, she is thrown on to the trail of a deadly psychopath.

THE HUNT IS ON. Caught in a frenzied spiral of secrets and violence, Annika finds herself and her marriage at breaking point. Will her refusal to stop pursuing the truth eventually destroy her?

Marklund is one of the biggest names in Scandinavian crime writing, and one of the biggest sellers across Europe, particularly in the non-English language regions. She is becoming much more well-known in English-speaking countries now, thanks to recent translations. I have read one of 'her' books previously, kind of; POSTCARD KILLERS, which she 'co-wrote' with publishing behemoth James Patterson. Although I didn't think very much of that book (see my review here), I remained keen to try one of her own, solo-author efforts. So today is a good reading day, the day I started RED WOLF.

You can read prolific Eurocrime reviewer Maxine Clarke's review of RED WOLF here. I will share my own thought in due course. I hope I like the book as much as Maxine did.

Have you read RED WOLF, or any of Marklund's other tales (in English or other languages)? If not, will you give them a go, or are you a little 'over' the Scandinavian crime wave and it's relentless publicity?

Crime Fiction in the news and on the 'Net: Weekly Round-up and PD James special

There's been some more great crime fiction stories on the Web this past week - from newspapers, magazines, and fellow bloggers. Hopefully you will all like finding an interesting article or two linked here, that you enjoy reading.

But before we get into that, the incomparable Phyllis Dorothy James, Baroness James of Holland Park, OBE, FRSA, FRSL turns NINETY this coming week. I was fortunate enough to interview her recently (apparently the only Australian or New Zealand interview she did in the lead-up to her birthday this year), and will share the PD James 9mm interview (which I wove into a larger interview for a feature in the upcoming issue of Good Reading) on Tuesday, her birthday.

In the meantime, I thought I would make this weekly round-up a bit of a PD James special as well, in honour of the Baroness, so I've included several stories (many of them very well-written) about her that have been in the news the past couple of weeks or so, before we get onto a shorter version of the standard weekly round-up...

Crime Watch Round-Up: PD James in the News and on the 'Net

• Carol Memmott in USA Today interviews a "relaxed and ebullient" PD James, who is "in a festive mood" on board the Queen Mary 2.
• PD James "reflects on death, family − and the husband she couldn’t save" to Nigel Farndale of The Telegraph, while noting that she has "lived a very happy and fulfilled life".
• Lauren Mechling of the Wall Street Journal also interviews Baroness James on the Queen Mary 2. opening the Q&A format with "You don’t have a new book out. Why did you decide that you wanted to meet with me?"
• In an article in the Montreal Gazette, Anita Singh of the London Daily Telegraph interviews PD James, who although she uses email and tries to keep apace with the modern world, talks about the "horrifying" pace of technological change brought about by the Internet, and how older people who struggle to use computers are being left behind by society at a time when everything from shopping to booking tickets is being moved online.

Crime Watch Weekly Round-Up: In the News and on the 'Net

• LiveMint.com & the Wall Street Journal ask whether the greatest crime novels of the 21st century will be written by Indians, while taking a look at Vikram Chandra and his 900-page book SACRED GAMES, apparently "a masterpiece of early 21st century literature".
• Helen Carter of The Guardian's book blog takes a deep breath and pitches her crime novel idea to a roomful of "impressive industry names" at the recent Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate.
• The Nidderdale Herald reports on the recent Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival, including the awarding of the first-ever outstanding contribution to crime fiction award to Reginald Hill.
• The Inverness Courier says a new breed of Scottish writers like Tony Black are making Tartan Noir an even darker shade.
• The Minneapolis Star-Tribune takes a look at Finnish crime, with Finnish publisher Jouko Sipila moving to the US and making the mystery series by his brother Jarko, a journalist in Helsinki, more widely available.

What do you think of the round-up? Which articles do you find interesting? What are your thoughts on PD James turning 90, and her impact on crime writing? Have you read any of her books? What do you think? Is India going to take over crime writing? I'd love to read what you think.