The Killing and Scandinavian Crime Fiction
The Scandinavian crime novel has experienced phenomenal success in the early part of the Twenty First Century. Although the main catalyst has been Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy—especially the first book in the series, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo—in reality the region has produced a large number of intelligently-written entries into the mystery genre, including 1992’s Smilla’s Sense of Snow by Peter Hoeg. In addition to Larsson, the list of authors who have seen translations of their works make various English-language best seller lists in recent years include Henning Mankell, Jo Nesbo and Hakan Nesser.
Denmark took the popularity of this successful export to the next logical level in 2007 with the television series Forbrydelsen. The twenty-episode first season followed the murder of teenage girl Nanna Birk Larsen, with each installment making up twenty-four hours in the investigation. In 2011, AMC launched an American adaptation of Forbrydelsen, shortening its first season to thirteen episodes but sticking with the timeline format as well as placing equal focus on the family of the victim and a mayoral election campaign caught in the aftermath. While The Killing takes place in Seattle, Washington, and is produced by American television scribe Veena Sud, the series likewise has characteristics similar to those found within the pages of a Scandinavian mystery novel.
So what is it about Scandinavian crime fiction that makes it both unique and appealing to English-speaking audiences? A quick Google search reveals numerous competing viewpoints, ranging from characters to setting to psyche. “Maybe their relentlessly bleak view of the world makes us feel that our lives are better than we imagined, allowing us the pleasure of wallowing in pessimism at a safe distance,” offers Joan Smith in a May 2009 article for the London Times. She even entices Swedish author Hakan Nesser to agree with the assessment. “Nordic people are supposed to be depressed,” he is quoted as saying. “We’re not supposed to talk at all. We’re supposed to keep everything inside.”
The comment could just as easily pertain to almost any of the central characters on The Killing. Homicide detective Sarah Linden, for instance, is about to leave Seattle and start a new life with her teenage son and the man she has agreed to marry. The murder of teenager Rosie Larsen derails those plans but as the days roll on during the course of the series, the possibility that Linden is using the investigation as an excuse to keep from starting that new life becomes more and more realistic. Linden and recently assigned partner Stephen Holder, meanwhile, exhibit a communication problem between them, both in regards to the case they’re investigating as well as honesty about their personal life. It turns out that Holder developed a drug habit while an undercover cop and Linden struggles as a single mother who was herself raised in foster care. These truths come out slowly and reluctantly during the course of The Killing.
The Larsen family is likewise filled with secrets. While the depression experienced by the parents of Rosie Larsen is understandable given the death of their daughter, the extent of their willingness to keep the pain hidden as opposed to sharing it follows the observations of Hakan Nesser in regards to the Nordic psyche. Then there’s Rosie Larsen, who, as Holder phrases it, is a “good little dead girl (that) was a bad little live girl.” Although it is obviously natural for a teenager to keep secrets from their parents, in the case of Rosie Larsen those secrets pertain to a double life of sexual promiscuity. “Maybe none of us knew her,” Rosie’s aunt tells the girl’s mother, a comment that appears to indeed be true.
While initial feelings of distrust between Sarah Linden and Stephen Holder and secrets within a middle-class family may not be surprising on the surface, the psychological nature of Seattle city councilman Darren Richmond is another matter. Richmond is the “good guy” politician intent on making a difference by running for mayor against corrupt incumbent Lesley Adams, but the candidate has a dark side to his nature as well. For starters, Richmond’s wife died years earlier in a car crash and the event continues to haunt him. “I wish you’d talk to me about her,” his new love interest tells him. Richmond instead decides to keep his emotions inside—on the surface at least. In reality he had embarked on a number of affairs after the tragedy, some of them with prostitutes, who displayed a similar physical appearance to his late wife. He even asked one of them if they “ever wondered what it was like to drown,” making one wonder what exactly lies beneath the political mask of Darren Richmond.
“What distinguishes these books is not some element of Nordic grimness but their evocation of an almost sublime tranquility,” Nathaniel Rich offered on Slate in July 2009 in contrast to Joan Smith’s assessment of Scandinavian crime novels. “When a crime occurs, it is shocking exactly because it disrupts a world that, at least to an American reader, seems utopian in its peacefulness, happiness, and orderliness. There is a good reason why Mankell’s corpses tend to turn up in serene, bucolic settings—on a country farm, on a bobbing raft, in a secluded meadow, or in the middle of a snow-covered field: A dark bloodstain in a field of pure, white snow is far creepier than a body ditched in a trash-littered alley.”
The Seattle of The Killing is not that of a booming metropolis but a scenic landscape of mountains, forests and lakes. Although the Space Needle often appears in the background, the bulk of the narrative takes place in the working-class suburbs of the region. The effect is equally tranquil, as well as equally disruptive when the body of Rosie Larsen is found inside the trunk of a car hidden at the bottom of a lake. Against the backdrop of steady rain and the darkness of night lies the deceased teenage girl, with badly beaten bruises and both hands and feet tightly bound. When her body is ultimately discovered, it is a haunting image to say the least.
In addition to the likes of Henning Mankell and Hakan Nesser, there’s Stieg Larsson, who turned the Scandinavian mystery novel into a pop culture sensation with the first of his trilogy, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Larsson differs from his contemporaries in that the “hero” of his tales is a journalist, not a member of the law enforcement community. And while other authors within the genre have interspersed political and social commentary into their works, none has done so to the degree of Larsson.
“(Sweden’s) secret Nazi past is exposed in Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy, along with present-day sex trafficking in Stockholm and the influence of Russian gangsters,” Joan Smith writes in the London Times. Nathaniel Rich adds on Slate, “Gradually, as if pulling a scab off a wound, Larsson exposes a scummy underworld of corrupt cops, meat-fisted thugs, sleazy government operatives, and sadist child rapists.”
Regardless of whether by design or coincidence, The Killing likewise contains it own commentary on society that goes beyond the corrupt political mechanics that plays a prominent role within its narrative. During the early stages of the investigation into Rosie Larsen’s death, a Muslim high school teacher emerges as a potential suspect. While it may be easy to dismiss this development as a red herring that serves as a diversion from the main storyline, in reality it demonstrates the speed in which a person can be transformed from “suspect” to “guilty” in the media-fuelled public eye, and the quick negative response that can be unfairly unleashed against Muslims and other minorities in the wake of a tragedy.
Stieg Larsson introduced and hinted at many elements within The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo that were not fully explored until later entries into the trilogy. Jo Nesbo, meanwhile, killed off Harry Hole’s partner in The Redbreast, had the police detective haunted by the crime in the follow-up Nemesis and not resolve the murder until his next novel, The Devil’s Star. Scandinavian mystery writers thus have a talent for not ending their narratives with the various strings tied into nice little bow, a trait that The Killing likewise exhibited when it failed to name the murderer of Rosie Larsen at the end of its inaugural season.
“As any lover of murder-mystery novels knows, the solving of the crime is usually secondary to the various secrets and subplots the investigation reveals,” Mary McNamara wrote in the Los Angeles Times in defense of the finale. “Each ‘red herring’ of The Killing revealed something dark and disturbing—the need of a young girl to find acceptance through humiliating sex, the fine line between fondness and overfamiliarity many young teachers walk, the separate enigmas and glossed-over miscommunications that make up even the most loving families, the bestial violence that hunkers down deep in every father’s soul.”
The Danish television series Forbrydelsen took many of the elements of Scandinavian crime novels and wove them into a twenty-episode drama. The Killing in essence Americanized Forbrydelsen with its transplantation from Copenhagen to Seattle but the basic elements remain intact. Producer Veena Sud added some experimentation of her own, deciding to make the narrative “organic” in both its development and resolution. The end result was not always perfect but The Killing proved to be a worthy counterpart to Scandinavian crime fiction nonetheless. Sarah Linden may not have as Swedish-sounding of a name as Mikael Blomkvist, Van Veerteren or Kurt Wallander, but she can indeed be considered their equal.
Anthony Letizia (June 29, 2011)
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