Nordic crime is more than just a barrel of laughs

Nordic crime fiction has been in the spotlight here at Detectives Beyond Borders, notably the question of what, if any, characteristics are common to crime writing from the Nordic countries.

With that in mind, two bits from Helsinki Homicide: Against the Wall, by Finland's Jarkko Sipila, typify what I suspect many people would regard as typically Nordic:

"Finland was home to one of the top per capita homicide rates in Western Europe, but most slayings were the result of drug and alcohol addicts solving their disputes with whatever weapons they could get their hands on."

and

"Over a million semi-trucks passed from Finland to Russia every year. It was impossible to track all the imports and exports. ... The incidents of fraud were numbered in the thousands, or tens of thousands, but investigators were numbered in the tens."

Resignation. Fatalism. What does Nordic/Scandinavian crime fiction mean to you?

© Peter Rozovsky 2011

Finnish crime comes to America

Readers in the English-speaking crime-fiction world like to gripe about the dearth of translated fiction in their language. Over at Pulpetti, Juri Nummelin reports on a Finnish crime writer who took matters into his own hands and, with his brother who works on Wall Street, started his own publishing house to get his work out in America.

First up from their new Ice Cold Crime is founder Jarkko Sipilä's own Helsinki Homicide: Against the Wall. And more is on the way. Says Juri:

"Ice Cold Crime is publishing next another book by Sipilä, whose work is strictly rooted in the police procedural and its hardboiled subgenre. Then they'll probably publish something by Harri Nykänen. Nykänen is slightly better known in the US, since the Raid TV series made from his novels was shown in some cable channels there."

See Sipilä's Web site for more info. Read a summary of Helsinki Homicide: Against the Wall here.

© Peter Rozovsky 2009