Why are Nordic detective novels so successful?

[Robin]

The Economist

THE neat streets of Oslo are not a natural setting for
crime fiction. Nor, with its cows and country smells, is
the flat farming land of Sweden’s southern tip. And
Reykjavik, Iceland’s capital, is now associated more with
financial misjudgment than gruesome murder. Yet in the past
decade Nordic crime writers have unleashed a wave of
detective fiction that is right up there with the work of
Dashiell Hammett, Patricia Highsmith, Elmore Leonard and
the other crime greats...

Continued: http://tr.im/RsO4

[Willow]

I have a shelf full after catching on a few years ago. They seem so
dark, moody, and - dare I say it - closer to Canadian views than most
of the American novels. Understated, polite, and hiding more than is
in the open.

Willow

[Fire Tiger]

No one is surprised by murder in the inner cities. It is assumed.
But murder where you think it isn't the norm makes that murder more
interesting. If the cops are shocked and have a learning curve to
overcome, that's drama. If the cops are bored and just look at it
like making sausage, the reader will yawn. This is one of the reasons
why Agatha Christie had Miss Marple in a cozy little village ... that
apparently was the murder capital of England.

But what the above means is that eventually people will not look at
Scandinavia as not pure as fresh snow. Like murder is now in cozy
English villages.

Scott

[Annie C]

"Willow" <walittl...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:51d03a36-f576-4e63...@a10g2000pri.googlegroups.com...

Ran across this interesting piece in March 11 The Economist on this very
subject...
"Why are Nordic novels so successful?"

http://www.economist.com/culture/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15660846

Annie

[needles]

They are what some people like to call a *time-slip* genre.
By that I mean you have either a late 19th centaury or early 20th centaury
Policeman's mind set trying to solve a 21st centaury crime.
But, those same Nordic Policeman are as hapless as is humanly possible to
be, they do not know how to cook or do their own laundry.
They are usually divorced, have children who if not in some kind of therapy,
are doing drugs,are alcoholics, or unwed and sometimes under age mothers.
Plus the sad fact that their (the Policeman's) ex-wife is some kind of evil
cynical control freak.
Those Nordic Policemen are at the very least borderline dysfunctional in
anything and everything that is not job related.
It is as if Elmore Lenard and Stephen King got together to write a murder
mystery.