Stuff Swedish People Like: Detective Stories

Swedes can't get enough of their own brand of detective stories: The social-realistic kind. It is usually set with a male upper-middle-age lead character, who is divorced, and has a drinking problem, maybe a bad stomach, or other similar disorder. He has children, whom he has neglected, and has a gnawing bad conscience over.

Sometimes the lead character can be a famale, since many female journalists have turned to the lucrative detective book/TV- or movie-adaptation/business. She is usually a real clever type, who is divorced/divorcing, and her ex- or divorcing husband is a total creep. She has a hard time juggling her career with picking up her kids from day care, and frying frozen meatballs for dinner.

The crook is normally some creepy asshole dude you really wouldn't suspect, since he has a normal social front, and neighbors and family who loves him dearly. These creepy asshole killers often attack women in the most ghastly ways, for added suspense, and a feeling of that this particular creepy asshole crook is really demented and dangerous.

There might be a colleague of the lead character, who is a real loose cannon. He has a problem with being so rock'n'roll and violent, and is of course irresistible to the opposite sex. This character spices up the otherwise quite sombre stories a bit, and is generally an alibi for entertainment violence and cockiness.

This niche in crime fiction started out in the 60:s with Swedish spouse-writer team Sjowall/Wahlo, and has been brought to a peak with the global success of Stig Larsson's Millenium-series. There is a crime novelist in every Swedish journalist, and there is at least one of these crime stories on Swedish TV every night, either as a movie, or a series. There is a flood of these stories, and the demand seems endless.

Swedes love this stuff, and has somehow managed to export the concept. Seems like the world can't get enough of Swedish, balding, scruffy detectives with alcohol issues and a knack for catching real clever serial killers. If you want to befriend a Swedish person, you just have to watch a few Beck-movies, of which there are probably over 40, and just say: Oh I love Gunvald, he's such a loose cannon!