Partners in crime

In 1969, Phillips Petroleum unearthed an offshore oil field in the frigid North Sea. Norwegian crime novels would never be the same again.

What did this discovery have to do with the boom in detective fiction? Everything. "Oil changed the country from a mostly rural to urban society," says Nils Nordberg, Norway's leading crime fiction expert. "Crime was no longer out of place in our formerly-peaceful country. Then with the opening up of the world, we also got drugs and organised, international crime," he explains. The annual number of crime novels in Scandinavia's least populated country went from just five in 1972 to 25 in 1975, adds Nordberg. The genre's popularity has been skyrocketing not just in Norway and Scandinavia, but the entire world.

Much is written about 'Scandinavian noir' — an umbrella term for noir originating from Norway, Sweden and Denmark. Sweden in particular toplines the genre with authors like Maj Sjöwall, Per Wahlöö, Henning Mankell, Stieg Larsson and Håkan Nesser. Larsson's The Millennium series is credited with introducing Swedish noir to the world, but crime novels in Norway and Denmark aren't far behind. In fact, Norway's tryst with crime fiction dates as far back as 1908, with the fictional detective Knut Gribb.

The Oslo-born-and-bred Gribb was created by Norwegian author Sven Elvestad, who went by the pen name Stein Riverton. So cemented is his legacy in Norwegian literature that many believe Knut Gribb to be the world's oldest continuously-running detective series (The last Sherlock Holmes short story, The Adventure of Shoscombe Old Place, was published in 1927).

"Stein Riverton was the father of Norwegian detective fiction. During 1910-1925, he was probably the biggest name in the genre in Northern Europe," informs Nordberg.

Nordberg is more than a crime fiction pundit. Apart from penning detective fiction anthologies and producing crime fiction radio dramas for the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation, he's the only Norwegian in Baker Street Irregulars, the world's most prestigious Holmes 'fan club'. A childhood literary diet of everything from John Dickson Carr and Sexton Blake to Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett and, of course, Knut Gribb cemented his love for the fictional detective. So much so that his participation in the TV show Double or Quits saw him win twice on the subject of Sherlock Holmes. "People thought that I was an expert on crime fiction – which I wasn't – and that opened up career possibilities. There seemed to be a need for someone with such expertise, so I thought, why not? I read up on the history of the genre, started a cornerstone library and never looked back," he says.

Like Nordberg, Håkan Nesser's entry into the world of detective fiction too was accidental. The Swedish author, whose Van Veeteren series has sold over 10 million copies in 25 countries, didn't start out as a 'mystery' writer. His first book — Koreografen (The Choreographer) — was a romance novel. "The second book, The Mind's Eye, was my first detective novel, but not intentionally so. It just so happened that the story found its best form in crime fiction. That spawned the nine other Van Veeteren books," he says.

A three-time winner of the Best Swedish Crime Novel Award, Nesser is a staple in the diverse world of Swedish detective fiction. He's also the creator of the eccentric Swedish-Italian Inspector Barbarotti, who has his own series spanning five books.

Swedish police procedurals are rife with cynicism. The nature of crimes is in stark contrast to otherwise idyllic Scandinavian landscapes. Several observers feel that Swedish noir is synonymous with vulnerable women and graphic violence. Ask Nesser about this, and he explains: "It's easy for fictional Protagonists to be are cynical because they're surrounded by crime and frequently witness humanity's dark side. A rationalist approach gears them psychologically to deal with their jobs. As for the violence, I'm only responsible for my own books, but I do think there's explicit violence in Swedish crime fiction. It's unnecessary to write in such a sensationalist fashion, so I avoid it."

Indeed, Nesser's works also hold their own in a crowd with noticeable political and social commentary. Like Norway, Sweden had a surge in detective novels in the '60s-'70s, when Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, the forbearers of Swedish crime fiction, helmed the Martin Beck series. In an interview, Nesser once said that crime writers are social critics, and here, he explains why. "Sjöwall and Wahlöö were leftists and introduced social criticism in the genre. Henning Mankel and Stieg Larsson's works are also very political, but mine aren't. My characters books deal with existential crises and the psychological bent of why people do what they do," he says.

Nesser is also at pains to underlines why the 'Scandinavian noir' label should be discarded. "If you read 10 Swedish crime writers, you'll see that we're all very, very different," he laughs. "It's time people look at each book instead of grouping everyone from Scandinavia in a box."

Indeed, there's a difference between the terms 'Scandinavian noir' and 'Nordic noir', which are used interchangeably. "'Nordic' includes Iceland and Finland. And when it comes to detective fiction, the Danes go more for psychological and political suspense, Norwegians prefer action and adventure. There is also, at present, a renewed interest in the World War II period in Norway and Denmark, which in contrast to Sweden were both occupied by Nazi Germany. So several books are set in that period or have plots going back to it," says Nordberg.

Perhaps it's this rich tapestry of history and culture that makes crime fiction here such a force to reckon with. From Norwegian author Jo Nesbø's hard-as-nails Harry Hole to Danish duo Kaaberbol and Friis' Nina Borg series, this is a world that goes beyond the Larssons and the Mankells. "In Norway, there's Gunaar Staalesen, who writes style-conscious private eye thrillers set in Bergen. Anne Holt so far has written series about a lesbian private detective, and an attorney, and a surgeon. And former police detective Jørn Lier Horst writes realistic police novels," informs Nordberg.

Unbeknownst to many, Norway also has its own fictional archaelogist-sleuth archaeologist-sleuth, a la Dan Brown's Professor Langdon. "The author Tom Egeland writes better, in fact. His series took off two years before

The Da Vinci Code was published and based on the same idea," Nordberg adds.

The message is best summed by Håkan Nesser. "It doesn't matter if a book is written in Ukraine or Brazil," he says. "A good story always overcomes time, language and distance."
We couldn't agree more.