Category Archives: By country

BBC1’s Zen

Posted on by Kat Hall
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I caught up yesterday on the first episode of BBC 1’s Zen, adapted from the Aurelio Zen crime novels of Michael Dibdin. I haven’t read the novels, and wasn’t particularly taken with the trailer for the programme, so had dragged my feet a bit, but when I finally tuned in, I was pleasantly surprised.

The first episode, ‘Vendetta’, immediately grabbed my attention with its sassy styling. The production seems to be channelling sleek 60s films like The Thomas Crown Affair through its camerawork, music and sharp-suited look.  Dark shades were much in evidence. The feel was very Italian, with lovely vistas of Rome and olive groves in the countryside, and a bleached Mediterranean light (or was that just my telly?). But it was all done with a bit of tongue-in-cheek humour and was tremendously fun.

ZEN (high res)

Rufus Sewell was excellent as Zen. From the comments I’m seeing elsewhere, his Aurelio is a little sleeker and more of a heartthrob than the one in the books, but the characterisation certainly played well with this 40ish female viewer. He’s a genuinely accomplished actor, and his chisled profile was shown off to good effect during his encounters with the alluring Tania (a hint of Michaelangelo’s David there?). There was a strong supporting cast too.

One interesting point: British and Italian actors mingle throughout, and it seems that everyone has been instructed to deliver their lines in their own accents (so we had Queen’s English, northern English, Italian and possibly Irish accents bundled in together). It was a bit odd at first, but somehow seemed to work OK. Better than everyone trying to fake an Italian delivery and getting it tragically wrong.

I watched Zen with my 15-year-old son, who said he would walk after 10 minutes if it was no good. He stayed for the duration, which is a compliment indeed. We both liked the multi-layered plot (until the end, when we got a trifle confused due to the long, drawn-out meaningful looks and cryptic exchanges between the characters, which were undoubtedly significant, but not always intelligible to us). 

We’ll be watching the second episode, ‘Cabal’, tonight  – so the makers of Zen are doing something very right. In particular, I look forward to seeing how Zen’s character navigates the increasingly tricky role of ‘honest cop’ in an Italian police force portrayed as inherently corrupt.

Both episodes of Zen are still available on iplayer.

If watching Zen has made you want to read Dibdin’s series, or other crime novels set in Italy, there’s a good list and overview here, on the Italian Mysteries blog.

Update: Just watched the third episode, ‘Ratking’, which I think was the best yet, especially in terms of snappy one liners:

Man: ‘I hear you’ve found a body?’

Zen: ‘Yes, they think it’s my career.’

All nicely set up for a series now: please BBC, we’d love to see more.

Danish crime: The Woman from Bratislava

Posted on by Kat Hall
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One of the crime novels waiting for me under the Christmas tree was Leif Davidsen’s The Woman from Bratislava (2001). I’d been eyeing this one up for a while, and was very pleased that Santa had been clever enough to bring it along.

The Woman from Bratislava (Eurocrime)

I’ve not read any Danish crime fiction since Peter Hoeg’s Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow (1992), but Davidsen, described by The Sunday Times as ‘one of Denmark’s top crime writers’, seems like a good author to try out. He’s a former journalist who specialised in Russian and Eastern European affairs, and has a particular interest in the legacy of the Second World War and the Bosnian conflict. He tends to use the crime/thriller format to explore larger political and historical issues, which immediately draws me to his work. In The Woman from Bratislava, a middle-aged Danish lecturer receives a visit from an Eastern European woman who says she’s his half-sister. Their father, a former SS officer, had been declared dead in 1952, but in fact went on to live a second, secret life. Oh, and his other sister is a possible Stasi agent… 

All this before the first murder takes place :O

So far I’ve only read the prologue, but was gripped by its fusion of European history, secret service intrigue and dry humour. I’m hoping that the rest of the novel lives up to this early promise and will report in due course.

The Woman from Bratislava is published by EuroCrime, an imprint of Arcadia. Their website is one of my favourite places to browse for new crime fiction in translation (when I looked in today there were Norwegian, Swiss, French, Spanish and Greek novels on offer – and that was just the first page).

See later post for a full review of The Woman from Bratislava

Historical crime fiction: Sansom vs Eco

Posted on by Kat Hall
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I hugely enjoy historical crime fiction, and so was looking forward to reading C.J. Sansom’s Dissolution (2008), which features the lawyer-detective Matthew Shardlake, working under Thomas Cromwell as the monasteries of England are dismantled by Henry VIII.

The reviews I’d seen of Sansom’s work were extremely good, and I was rubbing my hands in anticipation not just of a single book, but of a whole new crime series. But I found Dissolution a bit of a disappointing read. Not bad, by any means, but one that fell short of expectations (an illustration, perhaps, of how the overhyping of crime novels can backfire). I was hoping for richer historical detail, and felt that the depiction of Shardlake’s moral crisis, brought about by his realisation that Cromwell is less than a model of virtue, was rather weak. I guessed the murderer pretty early on as well (which of course is not necessarily a deal-breaker – just sayin’).

As I was reading, I was reminded of a classic historical crime novel: Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose, first published thirty years ago (yes really) in 1980.

This was no doubt triggered by the similar narrative framework of the two novels. In both we see the detective and his younger companion entering the enclosed, ritualistic world of the monastery, now transformed into a gruesome crime scene, with monks being picked off left, right and centre, and hints of devilish forces at work. In Eco’s work, though, it’s the young companion, the novice monk Adso, who narrates the tale many years after the events have taken place, rather than the detective in the historical present. Interestingly, Sansom is an admirer of Eco’s (see Guardian interview), and has clearly drawn on aspects of the earlier novel for inspiration when writing his own.

For me, The Name of the Rose leaves Dissolution in the dust, in terms of its depth and erudition, its status as a novel of ideas, and its fabulous evocation of a past time – in this case, of medieval Europe. And I love that Eco, an Italian professor of semiotics, is said to have written The Name of the Rose just to show everyone that he could. Write an international best-seller? Non c’è problema!

There’s a good profile of Eco and his works here.

Of course, it’s possible that my lack of enthusiasm for Dissolution is a reflection (ahem) of my own critical shortcomings. Am I missing something here? Does the series get better as it goes along? Willing to give the Shardlake novels another go if the case is made persuasively enough…

BBC4’s Wallander – The Pyramid

Posted on by Kat Hall
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Just caught up with the New Year’s Day showing of Wallander on BBC4, which I’d missed while at my mum’s (we watched the excellent ‘Eric and Ernie’ that night instead). I hadn’t seen this adaptation of ‘Pyramiden’ before, and it was an absolute (and extremely explosive) treat. The storyline reaches back to Wallander’s first days on the Ystad force, and is a poignant exploration of the moral difficulties faced by policemen who become personally caught up in a case. For those of you who haven’t yet had the chance, it’s still available to view for a few days on iplayer. 

The film is part of the Wallander series I enjoy most, made for Swedish Television between 1994 and 2007. I particularly like the rather louche depiction of Kurt Wallander by the actor Rolf Lassgård (pictured leaning on the chair).

The other Swedish actor who plays Wallander, Krister Henriksson, is a bit more buttoned-up, and although the latter’s version is probably more faithful to the characterisation in the books, I think Lassgård’s interpretation plays better on TV. Brannagh’s take on Wallander is OK, but give me either of the original Swedish actors and adaptations any day.

Hats off to BBC4 for making the Christmas season such a festive one for crime fans – full of quality murder and mayhem. There were excellent documentaries on Nordic Noir and Italian Noir, as well as lashings of Swedish and Italian crime. It’s so good to see these programmes in their original languages – please keep them coming.

Also a nice little pressure valve when the Xmas family gatherings got too much (probably saved a life or two and Mrs. Peabody a lengthy stretch in jail).

By the way, there’s a post about the evolution of the Swedish ‘deckare’ on the ‘Gone Elsewhere’ blog – well worth a read.

#1 Indridason/The Draining Lake

Posted on by Kat Hall

Arnaldur Indriđason, The Draining Lake (London: Harvill Secker, 2007 [2004]). Wrap up warm for a chilly Icelandic police procedural. 5 stars

Although this 2004 novel is written by an Icelander and set in Reykjavik, it’s firmly indebted to the classic Swedish police procedural. Detective Inspector Erlendur Sveinsson can be viewed as a third-generation representative of the Swedish police investigator, following in the footsteps of Sjöwall and Wahlöö’s Martin Beck, and Henning Mankell’s Kurt Wallander. Morose, cynical and consumed with self-doubt, these policemen have become progressively more embattled and isolated with each generation. In Erlendur’s case, he’s forced to question the extent to which his absence as a father is responsible for his daughter’s slide into a drug addiction – one the novel describes in sober and hard-hitting detail.

The draining lake of the title is Lake Kleifarvatn, whose mysteriously receding waters reveal an old skeleton weighed down with a heavy Russian radio device. As Erlendur and his team begin the painstaking process of investigating this strange find, they are transported back to an era of international espionage and political unrest during the Cold War, whose consequences can only now be fully understood.

Two things lift this crime novel a cut above the average police procedural. The first is the fascinating insight the novel gives into the Cold War period, and in particular, the experiences of young, idealistic, Icelandic communists who were offered the opportunity to study in East Germany in the 1950s. The second is the sensitive treatment of the theme of ‘the missing’ and of the impact that losing someone without knowing his or her final fate can have on the individual.

A number of the characters, including Erlendur, have lost someone close to them, and the novel is haunted by their many absences. While some eventually learn what happened to their loved ones, others are not so fortunate. They, and crucially the reader, are left without an adequate resolution to the story of these disappearances, a deliberate omission that adds tremendous power to the narrative. Thus, while the central murder is solved, other aspects of the plot are left open, questioning the notion that a case can ever be fully solved. We might know who the murderer is, and understand what motivated them, but the void left by ‘the missing’ remains.

The Draining Lake is well written, enjoyable and thought-provoking: a first-rate, multi-layered crime novel. Erlendur is a welcome and worthy successor to Beck and Wallander, and the novel’s Icelandic setting adds a beguiling and unusual dimension to the chilly subgenre of dark, Nordic crime.

The novel is the 4th in the ‘Reykjavik murder mystery series’, and in my view, it’s the best so far.

Mrs. Peabody awards The Draining Lake a mighty 5 stars