Jo Nesbo nominated for the 2010 Edgar Award

January 20, 2010

According to Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet, Jo Nesbo has been nominated for the 2010 Edgar Allan Poe Award for the “Best Novel” (see also mysterywriters.org). It is Nesbo’s Nemesis, translated by Don Bartlett, that has been nominated. The other nominees for 2010 are:
• Tim Gautreaux: «The Missing».
• John Hart: «The Last Child».
• The Odds by Kathleen [...]

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Swedish Stieg Larsson biography published

January 20, 2010

Before his death from a sudden heart attack in 2004, Stieg Larsson was known for his workaholic lifestyle. He ran the anti-racist magazine Expo and wrote freelance articles aimed at exposing Swedish neo-Nazis by night, and worked at the TT news agency as a graphic artist and journalist by day. The biography is written by [...]

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The Scandinavian crime fiction phenomenon

January 20, 2010

I recently read a sad article in the Wall Street Journal: “The Strange Case of the Nordic Detectives” by Laura Miller (see also the Scandinaviancrimefiction blog). The reason why it is sad, is that it seeks to explain away the qualities of Scandinavian crime fiction. I don’t know why it was written, maybe as [...]

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Mel Gibson to make a Viking movie!

January 18, 2010

According to Norwegian newspaper VG and Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet, Mel Gibson wants to make the best Viking movie ever. The languages of the movie will be those spoken at the time, Old English and Old Nordic. According to Gibson, Leonardo DiCaprio will play the lead male role. Gibson and colleagues are currently writing the script [...]

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The Year of the Hare, by Arto Paasilinna

January 18, 2010

Finnish author Arto Paasilinna is a very productive author and very popular in Finland, and his books have been widely translated (only 2 into English, however). His novels are fast-paced, light and very humorous in style, and several are adventuresq stories with a satirical angle, modern fables almost. The Year of the Hare belongs [...]

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Gripe: The Scandinavian countries and their literature

January 11, 2010

Scandinavian crime fiction is for the moment extremely popular all over the world. And so is , more generally, Scandinavian literature. Book lovers in the US, England, Germany, France, Spain and elsewhere still read Ibsen, Strindberg, Andersen, Undset, Hamsun and other wonderful Scandinavian writers. Even some of the more contemporary ones, like Jan Kjaerstad (Kjærstad), [...]

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Harry Hole’s CV

January 7, 2010

Are you interested in who that strange detective Harry Hole in Jo Nesbo’s excellent crime fiction series is? Do you, like me, sometimes ponder a little on the odd personalities of the heroes of the various crime fiction series?  There is no need to speculate any more! On the official Jo Nesbo site, they have [...]

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The Man from Beijing, by Henning Mankell

January 6, 2010

The Man from Beijing is a large-scale, global thriller. It describes and links events across time and space. A mass murder in Sweden in 2006. Chinese railroad workers in America in the 1860’s. Chinese neo-colonialism in Africa. It is all here. And the dots are very properly connected in Mankell’s grandiose plot.
Henning Mankell, the author [...]

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The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, by Stieg Larsson

December 31, 2009

First two exceptional books – The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played with Fire.

US Edition

UK Edition

Both books full of excitement, with multiple stories running parallel to one another. Each with a great ending, but each also with loose ends. And both ending in cliffhangers, making readers want to run [...]

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A Christmas Tale: The Little Match Seller, by Hans Christian Andersen

December 24, 2009

Happy Holidays to all the readers and supporters of this blog!
I appreciate the participation, the comments and the support the blog has received in 2009. I hope to create even more compelling content and provide interesting news about the literary scene in Scandinavia, especially about Scandinavian crime fiction, in 2010. I hope to see you [...]

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