Monthly Archives: April 2014

Hinterland on BBC4 … and other crime news

Posted on by Kat Hall
20

For those in the UK who’ve not yet seen Welsh crime drama Hinterland, now is your chance. Episode One will air again on BBC4 on Monday 28 April at 9.00pm. Further details are available from The Radio Times and an earlier blog post of mine, which contains a spoiler-free review.

And for viewers beyond our shores, the good news is that Hinterland has been picked by Netflix, so crime fans in Canada and the US will shortly be able to enjoy its delights too. Cymru Crime is on its way!

In other news:

The good people at Penguin are still sending me a Simenon a month from their freshly translated Inspector Maigret series, and I’ve had a lovely time working my way through the latest three, The Yellow Dog, Night at the Crossroads and A Crime in Holland (all originally published in 1931). The latter involves a French lecturer suspected of murder and is therefore right up my street (although I hasten to add that all the French lecturers I know are model citizens). I’ve updated the Maigret page – we’re now up to a total of seven novels.

Holding on to the Dutch theme… I’ve just received a copy of Lonely Graves (Mulholland Books/Hodder), which is set in Amsterdam, and authored by ‘Britta Bolt’, the pseudonym of German Britta Böhler and South African Rodney Bolt. Böhler is a former lawyer in international law, while Bolt has a background in travel writing – an ideal pairing for a crime novel set in foreign climes. Their ‘detective’ is municipal government employee Pieter Posthumus, who arranges so-called ‘lonely funerals’ for those dying without family or means, and who decides to investigate when a young Moroccan is found drowned. I’m a few chapters in, and am enjoying the unusual scenario and Amsterdam setting. The novel is the first in ‘The Posthumus Trilogy’ – looks promising.

Meanwhile, I’ve also been exploring Turkish German novels for the Crime Fiction in German volume, including Jakob Arjouni’s Kayankaya series and Akif Pirinçci’s ‘Felidae’ series (in which Francis the cat detective can be said to represent a migrant perspective). The opening novel has been made into a rather good animated film, but be warned that it’s not suitable for children, as it explores some rather adult themes. Both series are available in English translation and have met with considerable success.

There are also some interesting recent developments, such as Su Turhan’s ‘Kommissar Pascha’ series, featuring Munich Turkish-German police inspector Zeki Demirbilek (not yet translated). My Swansea University colleague Tom Cheesman’s book, Novels of Turkish German Settlement (Camden 2007) has also been very helpful in terms of understanding wider issues relating to migrant experience and identity in Germany, and pointing the way to some crime fiction gems.

 

The Grand Budapest Hotel

Posted on by Kat Hall
19

We’ve just seen American director Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel, which was a sumptuous viewing experience and will definitely be on my 2014 list of top films.

Mr. Peabody thought the film was ‘a love letter to Europe’, which is an excellent summation. Handily for this blog, it’s also a wonderful crime caper, triggered by the murder of a fantastically wealthy 84-year-old aristocrat (‘she was dynamite in the sack, by the way’), who’s played with panache by Tilda Swinton.

There are so many things to love about this film: it’s expertly constructed on four different time levels – the present day, 1985, 1968 and 1932 – which fit snugly inside one another like Russian dolls; it celebrates friendship, loyalty, love, kindness, courtesy, tolerance, multiculturalism and cosmopolitan ‘old’ Europe before the darkness of fascism and then communism falls; the characterisation is marvellous, especially of concierge M. Gustave (Ralph Fiennes) and bellboy Zero Moustafa (Tony Revolori/F. Murray Abraham); it shows the importance of writers as chroniclers of memories and history, and the power of literature down the generations; it’s quirky, funny, and profoundly moving; it features a wonderful ensemble cast and is a visual feast from start to finish.

Two extra tidbits. It was filmed largely in Berlin, in and around the famous Babelsberg Studios, and premiered at the Berlin Film Festival, where it won the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize. It’s loosely inspired by the life and works of Austrian-Jewish writer Stefan Zweig (see a marvellous interview with Anderson discussing this aspect of the film).

Wes Anderson is at the top of his game and has delivered an assured, masterfully crafted work of genius. There. Now go see it if you haven’t already! The official trailer is here.

The-Grand-Budapest-Hotel-Wes-Anderson-01-personnages

 

Spring crime reading: World Noir series

Posted on by Kat Hall
15

Spring has sprung here in Wales, and we’ve already had a few sunny days to reacquaint ourselves with the pleasures of reading outside in the garden, park, or by the sea. Bliss.

Left: one of my favourite reading benches in Tenby, Wales.

I’ve been getting on well with my research (more on that later), and in my spare time have been catching up with new releases in the ‘World Noir’ series from Europa Editions in New York. There are around 20 titles available from all around the globe (see below), of which I’ve now sampled three from France: Jean-Claude Izzo’s Total Chaos (translated by Howard Curtis, originally published 1995); Philippe Georget’s Summertime, All the Cats are Bored (translated by Steven Randell, first published 2009), and Jean-Denis Bruet-Ferreol’s (aka Mallock) The Cemetery of Swallows (Steven Randell again, first published 2012).

Image courtesy of World Noir / Europa Editions

Izzo’s Total Chaos – ‘This first installment in the legendary ‘Marseilles Trilogy’ sees Fabio Montale turning his back on a police force marred by corruption and racism and taking the fight against the mafia into his own hands’. Beautifully written, it’s also the story of three boyhood friends – Ugo, Manu and Fabio – and the pursuit of justice in a tough, imperfect world. The novel has a very masculine feel, with women relegated to the role of victim, mother figure or prostitute-with-heart-of-gold, but I can forgive this, because it’s so very good, especially in its exploration of the migrant experience. I’m keen to get my hands on the other two now.

Georget’s Summertime – ‘It’s the middle of a long, hot summer on the French shore and the town is full of tourists. Out of the blue a young Dutch woman is brutally murdered and another disappears without a trace. Gilles Sebag finds himself thrust into the middle of a diabolical game. If he intends to salvage anything he will have to forget his suspicions of his wife’s unfaithfulness, ignore his heart murmur, and get over his existential angst’. Like Total Chaos, this novel quickly immerses the reader in its Mediterranean setting, while drawing the reader into a complex and compelling police investigation. See Bernadette’s excellent review over at Reactions to Reading. 

Mallock’s The Cemetery of Swallows: ‘One day, Manuel Gemoni travels to the other end of the world to kill an old man. Manuel can only explain his bizarre actions by saying “I killed him because he had killed me.” Unable to comprehend why an ordinary family man would go to such lengths to murder a man he didn’t know, Police Commissioner Amédée Mallock decides to investigate. In order to save Manuel, Mallock must traverse the harsh tropical jungles of the Dominican Republic and the snow-covered streets of Paris’. I’ve just started this one, and am enjoying the intriguing nature of the case, the characterization of the investigator and the Dominican setting. There is a hint – just a tiny, subtle hint – of Vargas, but with the quirkiness dialed down. 

In sum: this is a quality series, showcasing the best of classic and contemporary noir, and we are promised another three to four titles each season. It could be time to hide the credit card, especially as the novels are so beautifully presented.

Thanks to Europa Editions for sending me these review copies from the World Noir series

German crime research update: I’ve had a fascinating time looking at crime fiction under National Socialism. To my surprise, there was lots produced between 1933 and 1945, and it wasn’t greatly censored until 1939, when authors were instructed to produce crime novels featuring policeman as heroes of the state. However, only a few overtly referenced Nazi ideology, which suggests that crime fiction was viewed more as a benign form of popular entertainment than as a tool for indoctrination. The research carried out by Carsten Würmann has been invaluable for getting an insight into this period.

I’ve also been delving into the Soziokrimi (social crime novel) or ‘new German crime novel’, which emerged in the late 1960s, and was influenced by both the student movement and Swedish writers Sjöwall and Wahlöö. There are some very interesting texts that explore the social causes of crime and the negative impact of capitalism on society. While some are quite earnest, others use humour to get their message across: Horst Bosetzky’s 1972 Einer von uns beiden (One of the Two of Us), depicts a blackly comic battle of wits between a smug, middle-class professor and the working-class student trying to blackmail him. The 1974 film adaptation was quite successful, and can be seen in German on YouTube here. Jürgen Prochnow, the actor playing Ziegenhals, went on to star in 1981’s Das Boot.