Swedish Swedish Crime Crime Scenes The books about Commissioner Wallander cover a different aspect Scenes of the idyllic small town of Ystad.

Introduction ÅSA LARSSON Photo: Florian Plag Although few murders are actually committed in , the Swedish HENNING ÅKE crime novel has become a modern classic and has gained a worldwide MANKELL (1948-2015) EDWARDSON (b. 1953) reputation in just a short space of time. From Gotland in the east to Of all the fictitious police inspectors currently at work, Inspector Erik Winter lives in Gothenburg, listens to Kurt Wallander is the doyen: a gloomy, opera-loving man modern jazz and loves cooking, especially Italian food. Fjällbacka in the west, from Ystad in the south up to Kiruna in the north, in the mud lands of the province Skåne, who frequently He is talented, rich and well-dressed, but works in asks himself where Sweden is heading. He lives in the a carefully depicted and surprisingly credible police the country is seen in a new perspective: via murder investigations small town of Ystad in the very south of Sweden, is community. The officers are a mixed bunch of everyday where the focus is not only on the crime but also on the Swedish divorced and has a daughter who will eventually follow cops who struggle patiently in a dozen books to put a in his footsteps and become a police officer herself. stop to the worst kinds of criminality: serial murders, welfare model and human psychology. In the course of ten novels and one novella, Kurt sex killings, showdowns in the underworld and racist Wallander has solved many cases that in one way or acts. The day-to-day lives and personal development another describe a Sweden in transition, cases that begin of individual officers are given plenty of scope. KERSTIN The Swedish crime novel was in fact born over a century ago with EKMAN in his immediate surroundings but often branch far out into the world. An added ingredient is ’s the publication of The Stockholm Detective in 1893, written under empathic description of the ageing of a lonely man. the pseudonym of Prins Pierre.

The original golden age of the crime genre in Sweden was the CAMILLA 1950s, when Stieg Trenter’s Stockholm series competed with Maria LÄCKBERG (b. 1974) Lang’s ‘feel-good’ novels set in both Stockholm and Bergslagen, LARS One of Sweden’s bestselling crime writers is Camilla Läckberg, KEPLER who moved the Swedish detective story closer to the chick lit genre and numerous other crime writers were active. in her nine novels. She writes both about Inspector Patrik Hedström, MICHAEL HANS JENS who pursues traditional police investigations, and about the woman HJORTH AND ROSENFELDT LAPIDUS LEIF G.W. he lives with, Erika Falck, who always gets involved but can do PERSSON STIEG But today’s crop of authors is infinitely larger. Sweden’s current LARSSON things that police are not allowed to. Their life together is given ARNE The modern port city of HÅKAN DAHL ANDERS BÖRGE considerable attention in the books, not least all the problems faced Gothenburg portrayed in crime fiction phenomenon has largely been shaken out of the shabby NESSER ROSLUND AND HELLSTRÖM the books of Edwardsson. KRISTINA by families with young children. They live in the idyllic seaside town OHLSSON LIZA of Fjällbacka, a fishing port on the west coast, where Läckberg often overcoat of Inspector Martin Beck, the protagonist in The Story of a CAMILLA MARKLUND LÄCKBERG bases her murder stories on historical events. Crime, the legendary ten-book series by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö. Photo: Dick Gillberg

MONS MARI Roseanna from 1965 marked the arrival of the modern Swedish crime KALLENTOFT JUNGSTEDT The granite archipelago of Bohuslän outside novel, rich in social criticism and portraying fairly ordinary characters of Gothenburg where Inspector Hedström’s village Fjällbacka is described by Camilla Läckberg. ÅKE trying to deal with a crumbling society. EDWARDSON

HÅKAN ÖSTLUNDH

HENNING JOHAN MANKELL THEORIN The texts in the exhibition are written by Lotta Olsson, crime fiction critic at the Photo: Henrik Trygg Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter MARI JUNGSTEDT (b. 1962) Mari Jungstedt has produced twelve books about Inspector Knutas and his colleagues in the Visby LARS police force in Gotland, Sweden’s foremost holiday island. Tourists enjoy the sandy beaches and ancient KEPLER town walls, handicrafts and local delicacies during The established literary couple behind this pseudonym, summer. Jungstedt often makes reference to its Alexander Ahndoril (b. 1967) and Alexandra Ahndoril history, its adjoining island Fårö, where Ingmar (b. 1966), made a dramatic breakthrough in 2009. Bergman lived, and the political focal point of the So far, they have written five novels about the Finno- Swedish summer, Almedalen Week. She contrasts the Swedish police inspector Joona Linna, a calm figure teeming life of summer with the empty, abandoned at the centre of the storm, and his young colleague, island environment of autumn and winter. Besides Photo: Lena Vasylenko Saga Bauer, a slip of a girl who possesses almost police inspectors Anders Knutas and Karin Jacobson, HÅKAN The summer paradise Öland shows a HÅKAN supernatural powers. The pair is based in Stockholm a young couple also play important roles, the photo- darker side in the books of Johan Theorin. and the first murders occur in the suburb of Tumba, grapher Johan Berg and teacher Emma Winarve. ÖSTLUNDH (b. 1962) (b. 1950) In 2015 Mari Jungstedt together with Ruben Eliassen NESSER but their work takes them both into the Stockholm Another author to have plumped for Gotland as a setting introduced a new crime series, which takes place on Van Veeteren, the police inspector at the centre of ten archipelago as well as to northern Sweden. In their is Håkan Östlundh, who has written seven books about the island of Gran Canaria in the Spanish archipelago. Nesser books, is by no means Swedish, operating instead latest book, Playground (2015), they have left Joona Visby police detective Fredrik Broman (and only deviated in a vaguely Dutch setting. But Håkan Nesser also wrote Linna and the traditional detective format and instead once, with a crime novel that takes place in Sollentuna, a five crime novels about Gunnar Barbarotti, who, despite write a novel with an obvious supernatural theme, where Stockholm suburb). They feature classic, unsentimental his Italian-sounding name was Swedish and worked in a dangerous realm lurks on the other side of death. The large islands of Gotland and Öland investigations of credible murders, where a car box smells the small town of Kymlinge in western Sweden. In addition, are worlds of their own in the Baltic Sea as vile as rotten seaweed, or where a young woman Nesser has written a number of freestanding crime novels MONS where the light, vegetation and history ponders whether to report her father for murder, or differ from the rest of the country. that tend to place more emphasis on characterisation, KALLENTOFT (b. 1968) where two petty thieves suddenly find themselves in the settings and atmosphere than on traditional crime-solving. clutches of hardened criminals. Gotland is both a cheerless To date, nine novels have been published about Malin Nesser flits between the detective story and the ordinary winter wilderness and a sun-drenched summer paradise. novel, between Sweden and the outside world, and Fors, a divorced, highly strung police officer with a drink between the present and the past. problem, living in the windblown university town of Linköping. But Fors is also one of the best officers around, JOHAN intuitive and persistent. Mons Kallentoft often gives the victims a voice as well – people caught between two THEORIN (b. 1963) strange worlds and who cry out for justice. The stories Photo: Lena Vasylenko The narrow limestone island of Öland has gone the same way range over a wide spectrum, from the man who appeared as Gotland, and both the rugged old fishing communities and to have fallen victim to an ancient Swedish sacrificial rite today’s well-to-do tourist spots appear in Johan Theorin’s in Midwinter Sacrifice (2007, aka Midwinter Blood), to the novels. The books centre on former sea captain Gerlof The 800 year old Cathedral explosion in Savage Spring (2010, aka Spring Remains) Davidsson, who lives in an old-age home and has all the in the city of Linköping where that appears to be a terrorist attack. Mons Kallentoft has time in the world to reflect on children who disappear, terrible Kallentoft’s Malin Fors lives. written two hard-boiled detective novels together with accidents and all the inexplicable things that happen, possibly Markus Lutteman, Zack (2014) and Leon (2015). rooted in Öland’s supernatural past. Johan Theorin has written four suggestive crime novels featuring the island’s varying seasons, and one about a fictitious mental hospital on Sweden’s west coast, The Asylum (2011).

Mist over Indalsälven where Kepler’s third book is set. Along the coast of Gotland are jagged rocks (rauk) sculpted by nature, some with almost human expressions.

Photo: Alexander Baxevanis Photo: Niklas Freidwall

Photo: Lena Vasylenko KRISTINA OHLSSON (b. 1979) JENS LEIF G.W. For a crime writer, it is extremely useful to have worked both (b. 1974) in the Swedish security service and as a counter-terrorism LAPIDUS PERSSON (b. 1945) officer in the OSCE (Organisation for Security and Cooperation The 2006 publication of Easy Money by criminal lawyer The summer of 2015 saw the arrival of the eleventh in Europe). Kristina Ohlsson made her debut with Unwanted Jens Lapidus marked a new direction for Swedish crime police novel from Sweden’s best-known criminologist, (2009), a traditional police thriller and the first in a series of fiction. While James Ellroy and Dennis Lehane write in a Leif G W Persson, who mixes a close familiarity with his five about police inspector Alex Recht and investigative analyst similar vein, Lapidus is something new. The language is subject with ironically humorous observation. His cast Fredrika Bergman, whose investigations become increasingly clipped, hip hop-influenced and full of slang expressions of police characters ranges from the masterly Inspector international in character. Especially in Hostage (2012) and mannerisms. The settings are the flashy nightclubs Lars Martin Johansson, a northerner who ‘can see round Kristina Ohlsson incorporates her knowledge about terrorism around central Stockholm, but also drug-running corners’, according to his admirers, to the corrupt and and security policing. Kristina Ohlsson has since written two locations around Stockholm with poor suburban youth prejudiced Evert Bäckström. They usually operate from hard-boiled thrillers about lawyer Martin Benner, Lotus’ as foot soldiers. Lapidus calls his trilogy Stockholm Stockholm’s central police station in Kungsholmen, Blues (2014) and Mio’s Blues (2015). Noir. He has since its completion written two further but Inspector Johansson’s favourite haunts are an novels, The VIP Room (2014) and Stockholm Delete Italian bar and a hot-dog stand elsewhere in the city. (2015), which are rooted in the trilogy but with The protagonists seldom leave Stockholm, but in Linda – STIEG different protagonists and partly different style. As in the Linda Murder, Evert Bäckström makes life (1954-2004) difficult for people in the southern town of Växjö. LARSSON The Trilogy scarcely needs any introduction: Stockholm is a city of water and light built journalist Mikael Blomkvist and the tough, asocial computer on islands connected by many bridges. hacker are world famous. Their creator, Stieg ARNE The Stockholm metro. Larsson, died before the series was published and the trilogy DAHL achieved worldwide fame. It is an affectionate pastiche on the Arne Dahl is the pseudonym of author (b. 1963), Swedish crime writing genre, represented by the whodunit, The who has written 11 books about the ‘A Group’, a talented Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, the police novel, The Girl Who Played group of unusual police investigators in Stockholm operating Photo: Magnus Fröderberg with Fire, and the spy thriller, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest. caringly describes Södermalm in Stockholm, in traditional Stockholm environments: the old industrial zone Photo: Let Ideas Compete at Sickla (now gone), the increasingly trendy streets of the where both Lisbeth and Mikael lives, but also the Stockholm Södermalm district, and luxury villas in wealthy suburbs such archipelago and sparsely populated areas in northern Sweden. as Danderyd. But crime no longer recognises frontiers, and In 2015 an original sequel, The Girl in the Spider’s Web, written consequently Arne Dahl’s new series is Opcop, about a group by , followed the original trilogy. of Europol officers in The Hague in Holland who work across borders. The ‘A Group’ favourites are still there, of course. So far, four Opcop books have appeared, with titles taken from old Swedish children’s games. Stieg Larsson’s favorite café in Stockholm, Mellqvist Coffee Bar. Stockholm by night.

The stripped beauty of Skogskyrkogården (the Forest Cemetery) recalls the places where rites of ancient Scandinavians took place.

Photo: Richard Hemmer

Photo: Jason Wesley Upton

Photo: Cecilia Larsson Kiruna, the northernmost city in Sweden has an eternal night in winter and midnight sun in summer. KERSTIN ANDERS ROSLUND (b. 1961) EKMAN (b. 1933) BÖRGE HELLSTRÖM (1957-2017) Photo: Rob de Wit Nowadays, doesn’t write crime novels, This crime writing duo first appeared in 2004 withThe Beast, but both her first six books and her best-known work which dealt with paedophilia but also asked questions about ÅSA are murder stories. She made her debut in the 1950s during the golden age of Swedish crime writing with the impact of individual acts on the community at large. In LIZA LARSSON (b. 1966) their six books, Roslund and Hellström scrutinise Sweden’s and 30 Metres of Murder which was widely acclaimed, as especially Stockholm’s underworld, sometimes literally, as in MARKLUND (b. 1962) The far north of Sweden, around Kiruna in northern were her subsequent books. But the book selected a few Lapland, is the setting for Åsa Larsson’s five detective years ago as the best Swedish crime novel ever written The Girl Below the Street (2007), in which homeless people live With her debut novel, The Bomber, in 1998, Liza Marklund changed novels about the nervy lawyer Rebecka Martinsson was Blackwater, a horribly suggestive story about a in city tunnels. Two Soldiers describes a fictitious Stockholm the Swedish crime writing map. The book was a major success. who leaves Stockholm for the small village Kurravaara. young woman and her daughter who arrive in a small suburb which has turned into a ghetto. In recent years, Anders Marklund was awarded both the Swedish Crime Writer Academy’s Together with the calm and self-possessed local police village in the forest region of Jämtland province. Roslund and Hellstrom Börge have not written together, but prize for a first book and the new Poloni Prize designed to encourage officer Anna-Maria Mellan, she investigates cases An incredibly beautiful Swedish summer greets them, are working with others. women writers of crime fiction. Since then, restless tabloid reporter where priests are murdered, sects are exposed, murder but the idyll is shattered by the discovery of two tourists Annika Bengtzon has starred in a total of eleven books (the victims are found both on and under the ice, and in murdered in their tent. Kerstin Ekman is one of Sweden’s concluding book, The Final Word, appeared in 2015) – and she is a small dog kennel a boy who can no longer speak is foremost contemporary authors. an unusual protagonist. She leads an everyday brand of city life hiding. The landscape is mortally cold and people live in her Stockholm flat, forever puzzling together bus times, press far apart, but it is strangely warm and secure in the deadlines and parental obligations. The first books of the series in kitchens where the dogs sleep in the heat from the particular are set on the streets of the capital, where murder victims stove. In recent years, Åsa Larsson has started to write are discovered in a Jewish cemetery in the inner city, a woman is children’s books that have become very popular. murdered in the central square, Sergels Torg, and Bengtzon meets a bomber at a fictitious Olympic stadium in southern Stockholm. In later books Annika Bengtzon has been to the far north, in Luleå, but also crossed the country’s borders, including to Spain’s Costa del Sol. MICHAEL HJORTH (b. 1963) HANS ROSENFELDT (b. 1964) Criminal psychologist Sebastian Bergman has in the so-far Nighttime in one of Stockholm’s suburbs. five books been one of the more unpleasant main characters in Swedish crime fiction. He is gifted but so unreliable that the head of the National Homicide Squad, Torkel Höglund, The snowmobile has become dares not give him any demanding assignments. Bergman an essential means of transport is nevertheless drawn in when a boy disappears in the quiet in the large snowy expanses town of Västerås, when a woman is found dead in the of the north.

Photo: Daniel Mott Stockholm suburb of Tumba, when two women hiking in the Jämtland province discover skeletons, and when an entire family is murdered in the province of Värmland. In the most recent book Those Who Failed (2015), Photo: Peter Grant reality show participants are murdered.

Lapland described by Åsa Larsson is a mixture of pervasive nature and indispensable technology.

Photo: Henrik Trygg