Helsinki White by James Thompson is the latest in the Kari Vaara series of police procedurals set in Finland (available March 15, 2012). There are good cops and bad cops. And then there’s Kari Vaara. This guy has not had it easy. People shoot him and he shoots back. Kari lives in Finland so this…
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Thanks to the fabulous Lavie Tidhar’s tweetstream, I learned a new term yesterday: UmlautPunk. Now, if you’re like me, when you read that word, you probably imagined something like the picture at right. But no, according to The Science Fiction Dictionary of New Criticism, it means: UmlautPunk n. a kind of thriller detective fiction featuring…
“Christmas is for happy people,” a moody young hotel maid observes in Arnaldur Indridason’s (Indriðason) Icelandic thriller Voices. Indridason’s equally moody sleuth agrees. The moody sleuth, police inspector Erlendur Sveinsson, is on the scene because Santa has just been murdered—at one of Reykjavik’s leading hotels. In real life, Santa is the hotel doorman, who has…
Denise Mina fans may not be aware that she has a history (and a future) in comics as well as crime. She worked with illustrator Leonardo Manco on Hellblazer, and she’ll be working with him again to adapt the three Stieg Larsson novels—The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and…
As we all know, books are optioned every day for film and television, but most don’t make it past that first step. But The Snowman by Jo Nesbo (Nesbø) has just come one major step forward in the process: Martin Scorsese has agreed to direct. In typical form for movie-makers, Working Title Films is not…
I had no barometer for the Danes. Wait, I’m lying. There was Peter Høeg and Smilla’s Sense of Snow. But that was fifteen years ago and what I remember most was the white stuff of the title and how Smilla was an expert in it because she had family from Greenland. That helped me keep…
First, I love that in Norway, this clip may be a Teasertrailer, which is way more euphonic than simply “trailer,” a word as dull as a corregated metal cart furnished with formica. Next, it’s based upon Jo Nesbo’s just-released novel Headhunters, or Hodejegerne, which isn’t part of the Harry Hole series, but a stand-alone caper.…
I’ve come to believe Arnaldur Indridason (Indriðason) has given himself the task of reminding us that Iceland’s perspective is unique in the world. And I’m glad he’s taken on the job. He’s really good at it. Indridason’s international reputation was made with his Inspector Erlendur crime novels, beginning with Jar City, a 2000 sensation in…
I’m one of the few humans on earth who is not a Stieg Larsson fan. I closed The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo after two pages and never opened it again. That says a lot about my distaste for the book, because in general I have a bias toward Swedish crime writers. I adored Henning…
