Sir Kenneth to be Kurt Wallander

A reader reminds me that Kenneth Branagh will play Kurt Wallander in BBC adaptations of Henning Mankell's novels One Step Behind, Firewall and Sidetracked.

Branagh, according to the BBC, "has had a long time passion for the books." It's nice to know that the actor/director shares a liking for an author who has introduced so many to international crime fiction.

© Peter Rozovsky 2008

A gold mine of international crime fiction on TV and DVD

I’ve written here and there about international detective stories televised by MHz Networks in the Washington, D.C., area. It turns out that the network shows more than the Andrea Camilleri and Harri Nykänen series I mentioned in those posts. It screens entire series of detective shows from abroad under the general title International Mystery and plans to issue several on DVD, which I think is big, exciting news.

Here’s a note from Mike Jeck, MHz’s programming manager for films:

International Mystery has been screening since early 2000 on MHz Networks [an independent, noncommercial television broadcaster delivering international programming to the Washington, D.C., area, and now, selected affiliates and other outlets around the country].

Currently we are showing TV movies adapted from:
— Georges Simenon’s works about Maigret [the French series starring Bruno Cremer]
— Andrea Camilleri’s works about Montalbano
— The originally scripted German series Tatort [Scene of the Crime], focusing on the Cologne team of Ballauf and Schenk
— The unique, award-winning Finnish miniseries Raid [inspired by the novels, so far untranslated, by Harri Nykänen].

In the past, we have shown the Russian Sherlock Holmes adaptations, and almost all of the Mankell/Wallander movies and mini-series. We will soon resume showing all the Swedish adaptations/extensions from the novels about Martin Beck.

On a sister program we are showing the originally scripted Mafia series La Piovra [The Octopus], series 1 [there are 10.]

All of these are presented in the original language with English subtitles.

How to see us: For those in the Washington, D.C., area, click here. Nationally, click here.

DVD: We hold all US rights for the Montalbano, Octopus, and Martin Beck series; have wholesale/retail agreements re the Maigret and Raid series, and are in negotiations for several other series.

We expect to begin issuing Montalbano, Octopus and Raid DVD collections by at least early next year, with plenty of others to follow.

This is good stuff, readers.

© Peter Rozovsky 2007

Crime families

Not to get too sociological or anything, but I noticed a couple of years ago that some of my favorite crime writers had as significant sub-themes in their books their protagonists' efforts to build alternative families. Henning Mankell's Kurt Wallander, for instance, struggles to bring up his daughter, Linda. (He must have done something right, because she went on to become a police officer and a colleague of her father's.)

That great social comedian Bill James takes the theme several steps further, weaving families throughout his Harpur & Iles series. He explores the idea in particular detail starting with the tenth novel, Roses, Roses, built around the murder of Detective Chief Inspector Colin Harpur's wife. Even when spouses don't die, marriage, betrayal thereof and substitutes therefor are constants in almost all the books. Harpur becomes a loving, earnest single father to his wise, impudent and hilarious adolescent daughters -- and they love having Harpur's university-student girlfriend around, especially at breakfast time.

Several of the series' principal criminals have family issues of their own, and Harpur's occasionally insane superior, ACC Desmond Iles, is regularly reduced to frothing rage when remembering his own wife's affair with Harpur. Even the maniac Iles, uncertain as he may be about the paternity of his own daughter (Sarah Iles has had an affair with another officer in addition to Harpur), develops a fierce and protective tenderness toward the child.

Over in the Netherlands, Janwillem van de Wetering carefully delineated three distinct family situations for his three protagonists: Sgt. Rinus de Gier, Adjutant Henk Grijpsta, and their wise old superior, the unnamed commissaris. In France, there are Benjamin Malaussène and his incredible multinational, multigenerational Belleville crew in Daniel Pennac's novels.

OK, I'll stop here. This is crime fiction, after all, and not social science. I'll throw the question in your laps, readers. What interesting families and alternative families can you think of in crime fiction? And why are they interesting?

P.S. Maxine at the Petrona blog picks up this question and puts a slightly different spin on it. Post your comments in both places, and we can turn this into a world-spanning mega-discussion.

© Peter Rozovsky 2007

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