Kjell Ola Dahl has written numerous crime novels and his books have been translated into several languages. He has received several awards for his literary works, including the prestigious Norwegian Riverton Prize for his novel ”A Little Golden Ring” (”En liten gyllen ring”), in 2000. Now, no less than four novels from his popular series about the Oslo based police inspectors Gunnarstranda and Frølich are to be published in the U.S. by Thomas Dunne Books. We caught up with the author over a transatlantic cup of coffee.
A Realistic Approach
“The Scandinavian crime has a somewhat more realistic approach to the everyday life of ordinary people,” Dahl says, commenting on the considerable attention the genre has gained from an international audience the last years.
There has been a wave of popularity for this kind of literature, Dahl explains. His own novels have already had a formidable success in countries like Germany and Great Britain.
Dahl thinks this genre is appreciated by a global audience because it offers something else than the stereotypical crime. His novels feature both corrupt businessmen, cynical strippers, drug addicts and film noir type femme fatales, but Dahl also writes within a tradition of Scandinavian social realism.
For readers who are not necessarily familiar with the Norwegian geography and lifestyle, the settings add an exotic touch to the story.
“A lot of people appreciate the local settings, it gives a kind of social anthropology approach to what’s happening,” Dahl says.
Understanding Through Murder
Dahl has studied psychology, law and economy, and his novels often revolve around financial crime. But he has also had a varied career as everything from a farmer, a taxi driver, a teacher and a florist.
He now works as a writer full time, but it is clear that his background and experience with for example psychology still influences his works:
“I want to use the murder to understand the world,” Dahl says, adding that he thinks criminality says something about society’s view of what’s normal and what’s not.
In this way, a criminal act can be used to say something more general about the world.
Capturing The War Generation
Dahl explains that he does a lot of research for his books. “The Man In The Window” (“Mannen i vinduet”), one of the books in the series, includes a lot of war history, and for this, Dahl conducted interviews with people who had experienced the war themselves.
“That generation is about to die out,” Dahl says.
“That makes it important to get in contact with them, to get to know their stories.”
The first book to be published by Thomas Dunne Books, is “The Fourth Man”. Dahl describes it as a kind of Norwegian noir; inspired by American movies from the 1940’s and 1950’s. The novel will lead the reader into the dark underworld of Oslo, in this story about a man who has to take the consequences of his own actions. It has been described as “complex, dark and tragic”.
A Little Poetry
Crime novels are immensely popular in Norway as in so many other countries, and you’ll often find the crime novels topping the bestseller lists. Especially around the Easter Holiday, when Norwegians cuddle up with the latest crime novels in their mountain cottages after a day of skiing and snowboarding. However, this genre has sometimes been looked upon as a kind of pulp fiction by, well, the cultural elite, as the crime novels often have a primary focus on the plot – at the expense of the literary qualities.
Dahl however, is known for combining these two elements. His language is, as one critic put it “spiced with small poetic observations … of remarkably high quality.” The author himself says that this is his project, to “combine the genre literature with a little poetry and literary storytelling.”
So, if you feel like cuddling up this Easter with some quality murder, be on the lookout for “The Fourth Man”, which will be released in the U.S. on March 18th.