Nobody Move, This Is A Review: Blatty, Hill, Gran, Lackberg, Mankell

William Peter Blatty’s THE REDEMPTION (Piatkus Books, £7.99, pb) is an unusual thriller, as you might expect from the author of THE EXORCIST. Opening in Albania in the 1970s, the story focuses on a man being tortured on suspicion of being an enemy agent of the State. The atmosphere is redolent of a John Le Carré Cold War thriller, albeit one with supernatural overtones - the tortured man, Dimiter, remains effortlessly unbroken, and is spoken of in whispered tones as ‘the agent from Hell’. The setting then switches to Jerusalem, where a local police detective investigates a number of strange murders, and the supernatural tone gives way to a more philosophical enquiry into the politics of revenge, salvation and redemption. Blatty’s prose is starkly rendered, a minimalist style that adds momentum to the propulsive plot. There are occasional poetic flourishes, however, which leaven the story’s hard-headed realism, just as Blatty’s hints that Dimiter may be a creature more exotic than a mere spy lend the thriller format an element of quixotic speculation. The net result is a haunting tale that remains thought-provoking long after the final revelation.
  TABOO (Simon & Schuster, £6.99, pb) is the debut offering from husband-and-wife writing team Kevin and Melissa Hill. The latter is better known as the author of a series of best-selling women’s fiction titles, and here she creates the ultra-feminine feminist Reilly Steel, a California-born forensic investigator seconded to the newly founded Garda Forensic Unit, based in Dublin. The narrative employs for its spine a series of perverse murders that all appear to transgress social taboos, although the plot itself is secondary to the establishing of Reilly Steel as a credible Irish alternative to the international popularity of CSI-related investigations. In this the Casey Hill writing team is largely successful: Reilly Steel is a broadly drawn but likeable character, smart but not omnipotent, entirely capable but vulnerable too. The presence of a Quantico-trained FBI investigator on the mean streets of Dublin is plausibly achieved, and the novel derives its page-turning quality from the rapid pace of events as the investigation gathers momentum. The frenetic pace, however, results in a lack of psychological depth when it comes to characterisation, while the machinations of the fiendish killer are revealed to be disappointingly clichéd at the finale.
  CITY OF THE DEAD (Faber and Faber, £12.99, pb) is Sara Gran’s fourth novel, and the first to feature the private investigator Claire DeWitt. Commissioned to find a missing man in New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, DeWitt applies her unique brand of investigation style. This echoes the modus operandi of classic private eyes such as Philip Marlowe and Lew Archer, but often appears counter-intuitive due to DeWitt’s devotion to the theories of legendary French detective Jacques Silette, as espoused in his sole publication, ‘Detection’. Searching in the least likely places, working off instinct and hunch, DeWitt trawls the devastated New Orleans in pursuit of a truth she explicitly acknowledges does not exist. The tale has strong echoes of Ken Bruen’s post-modern take on the private eye novel, in which the case being investigated is less important than the self-invigilating investigator; as is the case with Bruen’s Jack Taylor novels, in which his native Galway looms large as a character, New Orleans, and the lack of response from the Bush administration to the catastrophic effects of Hurricane Katrina, provides Gran not only with her setting but also her theme. The result is a tour-de-force. Mock profundity blends into brilliantly detailed description on a line-by-line basis in a novel that deserves to be read in tandem with James Lee Burke’s magisterial THE TIN ROOF BLOWDOWN.
  THE GALLOWS BIRD (HarperCollins, £12.99, pb) is the fourth in Camilla Lackberg’s Patrick Hedström series, which is set in the relatively sedate backwater of Tanumshede in Sweden. Opening with what appears to be a straightforward single-vehicle drink-driving fatality which subsequently proves to be something rather more sinister, the novel broadens out to accommodate a number of narratives which run parallel to Hedström’s initial investigation. Chief among these is the murder of a contestant in a TV reality show being shot in Tanumshede, although Lackberg also invests the story with domestic detail in the run-up to Hedström’s impending marriage to his partner, Erica, who is herself struggling to cope with the demands imposed by her sister’s depression. Lackberg is one of Sweden’s best-selling authors, but THE GALLOWS BIRD is a curiously disjointed police procedural, its frequent digressions into the domestic minutiae of the protagonists’ lives creating a frustratingly halting tale that lacks narrative drive.
  THE TROUBLED MAN (Harvill Secker, £19.99, pb) of Henning Mankell’s latest offering can only be his perpetually self-questioning police detective Kurt Wallander. In this, his last case, Wallander is more troubled than ever, and not only by the disappearance of the future father-in-law of his daughter, Linda; Wallander, unable to ignore the protests of his aging body, is contemplating his own mortality and casting a cold eye over his career. What unfolds is a novel that works on a number of levels: a compelling investigation into a Swedish Cold War spy ring, a philosophical assessment of the nature of policing and its function in society, and a very personal evaluation of a person’s worth in the grand scheme of things, as Wallander opens a ledger on his own life’s profit and loss. Written in Mankell’s downbeat style (beautifully translated by Laurie Thompson), the fatalistic tone is entirely fitting for the final testimony of one of crime fiction’s great protagonists. The result is a hugely satisfying novel that ranks alongside Mankell’s best, a heartbreaking tale of descent into despair and darkness that serves as a totem for what great crime writing can achieve.

  Declan Burke is the editor of the forthcoming collection DOWN THESE GREEN STREETS: IRISH CRIME WRITING IN THE 21st CENTURY (Liberties Press).

  This column first appeared in the Irish Times.

Go Nord, Young Man

I had one of those pieces on ‘Nordic Writers Wot Aren’t Stieg Larsson’ published in the Sunday Independent last week, which featured contributions from Jan Costin Wagner, Yrsa Sigurdardottir and Hakan Nesser. It went a lot like this:

The Thrillers Who Came In From the Cold

With the second movie of the ‘Millennium Trilogy’ coming at the end of August, a Hollywood remake of the first movie starring Daniel Craig and (rumour has it) Scarlett Johansson already in the works, and the discovery of a fourth Blomkvist-Salander novel on his computer, it’s fair to say that the publishing phenomenon that is Stieg Larsson has some way yet to run.
  Aficionados of the genre, however, are aware that Scandinavian crime writing has much more to offer than Stieg Larsson. The Sweden-set ‘Martin Beck’ series of novels written by husband-and-wife team Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö are considered a milestone in the evolution of the realist crime novel, while Henning Mankell is a household name, particularly for his Kurt Wallander novels.
  A whole new generation of Scandinavian crime writers have emerged in the last decade, however. While the sub-genre has its roots in Sweden, the crime novel is now indigenous to Norway and Finland, Denmark and Iceland. Writers such as Karin Fossum, Yrsa Sigurdardottir, Jø Nesbo, Jan Costin Wagner, Karin Alvtegen, Håkan Nesser, KO Dahl, Camilla Lackberg, Leif Davidson, Arnaldur Indridason and Gunnar Staalesen are hugely popular not only at home, but increasingly so abroad too.
  The conventional theory has it that the assassination of Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme in 1986 had a seismic impact on the Swedish psyche, one consequence of which was an explosion in crime writing. Given the seriousness of the catalytic event, the crime novels were taken seriously by the Swedish literati, resulting in an ever-increasing quality of writing and criticism.
  Swedish author Håkan Nesser, on the other hand, takes an irreverent approach to the question of why there has been such a boom in Scandinavian crime writing.
  “When I’m in my most optimistic mood I tend to answer, ‘It’s due to the fact that we are such damned good writers,’” he says. “Right now we probably have the world’s largest number of good crime writers per capita, but please be aware of that we also have the world’s largest number of bad crime writers!
  “There is no such thing as a ‘Swedish way’ of writing a crime story,” he continues. “We are all different. The only thing we have in common is that we write in Swedish. Any reader who reads a book by Stieg Larsson, a book by Karin Alvtegen and a book by myself will realise this immediately. We all have different styles, different plots, different aims and agendas.”
  German author Jan Costin Wagner, who sets his novels in Finland, agrees. “Basically I think that every author has to find their own language,” he says, “their own key topics, characters and ways of approaching a story. And, of course, not each Scandinavian crime novel is a good one. But apart from that, I think that many Scandinavian crime writers understand how important it is to be serious and committed to their story and their characters.”
  Icelandic author Yrsa Sigurdardottir believes that Iceland offers a unique setting for the crime novel.
  “Iceland, with its 300,000 inhabitants, is a whole lot smaller population-wise than most countries,” she says. “As a result, the atmosphere here is still quite similar to that of a small town, despite our attempts at becoming cosmopolitan. This allows for complex interactions and ties between characters that differ greatly from those one expects in stories that take place in a big city. Another ingredient of the social fabric that differentiates us from other western countries is an unusually high belief in the occult and the supernatural, which adds an element that would probably strike a false note in crime stories based elsewhere.
  “Also,” she continues, “old secrets, vendettas and misdeeds might lie dormant here but they are never fully forgotten - or forgiven. When the social aspects just described are coupled with the smorgasbord of eerie scenery my geologically active country has to offer, Iceland thankfully has the makings of a wonderful backdrop for good, fun and creepy murders.”
  While Sigurdardottir highlights the physical and social aspects of her settings, Wagner identifies a more psychological appeal.
  “I don’t feel committed to a ‘school of writing’,” he says, “because I want to stay committed to my own inner movement: that is most important for everything I write. I feel close to the Scandinavian crime writing because Scandinavians quite often stay focussed on the inner, maybe hidden, life of a story and a character. I like novels which surprise the reader by finding their way beyond cliché. I like the silent moments, the words that are hidden behind the lines; I also like the silent showdown and not so much the bombastic one, which is based on a kind of formal, expected resolution.”
  The idea that the modern Scandinavian crime novel offers a blend of social realism and a more introspective take on the traditional crime narrative is echoed by Håkan Nesser.
  “Ingmar Bergman is a cineastic icon around the world,” he says, “and for most people a Bergman character is the true essence of a Swede: gloomy, depressive, suicidal, tragic, silent and deeply, fundamentally unhappy. But interesting, somehow.
  “I like to think that the above is not an accurate description of our national character,” he says, “but in all clichés there is an element of truth. And actually – though I find it a little hard to acknowledge – such stereotypes might be good material for characters in a crime story: morose men and women who can store grudges inside themselves for half of a lifetime, and then one day take desperate but calculated action like a bolt out of the blue.” - Declan Burke

  Håkan Nesser’s THE INSPECTOR AND SILENCE is published by Mantle.
  Yrsa Sigurdardottir’s ASHES TO DUST is published by Hodder & Stoughton.
  Jan Costin Wagner’s SILENCE is published by Harvill Secker.

  This article first appeared in the Sunday Independent.

  Incidentally, I finished Jan Costin Wagner’s SILENCE last night, and it’s a terrific piece of work. Highly recommended.

Yep, It’s Another ‘Dear Genre’ Letter

John Connolly reviewed Irvine Welsh’s latest novel CRIME for the Irish Times today (Saturday), making the following point in the process:

Genre conventions offer literary writers both significant advantages (structure, momentum and, frankly, the promise of some hard cash in return for increased sales) and potential pitfalls, the latter usually a result of their failure to take the genre in question seriously. Occasionally, though, their literary credentials liberate such writers from the expectations that readers might have of a more mainstream genre novel, allowing them to create something startlingly different while remaining, for the most part, within the structures of their adopted form.

  Maybe it’s just that I don’t read enough but my most recent experiences of literary authors writing crime – Benjamin Black’s THE LEMUR and Sebastian Faulks’ DEVIL MAY CARE – have resulted in anything but ‘startlingly different’. THE LEMUR, in point of fact, is hugely enjoyable because Black is poking fun at the genre’s tropes, but it’s by no means a radical departure for crime fiction. DEVIL MAY CARE, on the other hand, is utter tripe.
  The last time I read a terrific novel from a literary author writing crime fiction was JULIUS WINSOME by Gerard Donovan. And Donovan would probably explode into a million literary pieces if he heard we were describing his novel as crime fiction.
  Elsewhere in today’s crime-packed Irish Times, Vincent Banville returns – hurrah! – with a Crime File round-up that includes the latest offerings from Jeffrey Deaver, Harlan Coben, Patricia Cornwell, Michele Giuttari, Sue Grafton, Camilla Lackberg and Karin Fossum. Giuttari’s A DEATH IN TUSCANY has been winking at yours truly from near the top of Mt. TBR for some weeks now, and Banville’s review (“a long, absorbing and entertaining read set in a most exotic location”) sends it straight to the summit.
  The Big Question – when will we get to read another Vincent Banville novel? Only time, that notoriously prevaricating doity rat, will tell …