Scandinavian Noir: In Pursuit of a Mystery by Wendy Lesser
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
If you like Scandi noir, then you will probably enjoy this – I certainly did. Lesser is a fellow devourer of the genre, and writes with affection, intelligence, and a writerly eye about the writing, characters, plots, and – importantly – the settings of these often dark, brooding, eccentric books. The focus of the first half of this book is what she as a reader learns – or thinks she learns – about the culture and societies of Sweden, Norway, and Denmark as depicted in them. Her own taste leads her to exclude Iceland – for which I fault her! Arnaldur Indridason is one of my favorites – and Finland (with an exception or two). She begins (as we all should!) with Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo’s iconic and seminal series of ten Martin Beck books, and carries on through Henning Mankell, Jo Nesbo, Stieg Larsson, Hakan Nesser, Jussi Adler-Olsen and others less familiar. Her tastes and mine frequently coincided, so that raised frequent smiles and nods – but not always (I couldn’t read Stieg Larsson if my life depended on it). If you already know and enjoy these books, there is plenty to appreciate – if you don’t, you may well be inspired to give them a try.
The second half of the book covers her trip to Scandinavia, to see the the countries and the cities for themselves, to see if her impressions based on the novels are accurate. She makes pilgrimages to sites from the novels, visits local art and history museums and festivals. For unclear reasons, she narrates this in the third person, as a nameless “she” and her traveling companion. Perhaps she is making herself a “character” in her own Scandi story? The trip to Ystad to Wallander territory is sad: the town has become a virtual Wallander theme park. Some of this is a bit overlong. The best parts are when she snags interviews with working police dtetectives in the towns she visits, who tend to be patient and generous with their time and attention. Some are themselves fans of the noir genre, some not so much. She asks how many murders there are in Oslo (a city of about 650,000) in a year – they tease her and ask her to guess. “Fifty? A hundred?” she hazards. They laugh. Twelve to fifteen. It’s about that in Copenhagen, and maybe thirty or so in Stockholm. One detective pauses to think, and says he can’t remember any serial killers in his city in his career. Rapists, yes, but not killers. She explores why the literature coming out of these mostly well-run, peaceful cities is depicted as so much gorier, twisted, and just so much MORE than it actually is.
The book concludes with an annotated bibliography of books and television series. She recommends some wholeheartedly, others with reservations, but gives the reader a nice selection of titles to try (we have two more TV series on our Netflix list now). If you’re not already into this genre, it may or may not invite you in, but it’s smart fun for us already in the fold.
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