The Strangler's Honeymoon by Hakan Nesser - review

The Strangler's Honeymoon is another instalment in Hakan Nesser's fascinating series of books featuring the now recently retired chief inspector, Van Veeteren. It was first published in 2001, but the Pan Macmillan edition that has just been published marks its first appearance. The translation by Laurie Thompson reads smoothly and well.

I came to this book just after finishing a best-selling example of Eurocrime, a book that seemed to me to tick the 'best-seller' boxes efficiently, but nevertheless had a formulaic feel. I'm clearly in a minority about that book, but suffice to say that I much prefer Nesser's writing. His novels have a quirkiness and unpredictability that makes them seem somehow more lifelike and more meaningful than some other acclaimed European crime fiction.

This story is absolutely first class and had me gripped throughout. The eponymous killer is an intriguing, deeply disturbed man. There are (mainly at the end of the book) one or two examples of the gruesomeness that seems obligatory, and sometimes rather tedious, in many best-sellers about serial killers, but here there is nothiing gratuitous. Nesser makes his characters, and the strange things that many of them do, seem very believable and real. For that reason, the darker scenes in his books don't seem contrived and exploitative in the way that is sometimes the case elsewhere.

I enjoyed the twists and turns of the storyline,the dabs of humour, and also the interplay of the characters - Nesser brings them all to life. There was a very nice clue, involving an imaginary Golden Age novel, that I enjoyed and felt more could have been made of, but this was only one of countless appealing touches. I've enjoyed all the Nesser books I've read, and this one might just be the most entertaining of all.

Nordic Noir

Nordic Noir was an interesting BBC 4 documentary about Scandinavian crime fiction. As regular readers will know, I have quite a long-standing enthusiasm for a number of Scandinavian crime writers – as well as for their countries, which I’ve visited occasionally, and this was a worthwhile assessment with the added bonus of shots of fascinating towns, cities and landscapes (the photo is Stockholm, a city I really liked on my first visit this year.)

Inevitably, the main focus was on Stieg Larsson, but there was also discussion of a range of other writers, including Karin Fossum, Jo Nesbo, Henning Mankell, Sjowall and Wahloo – and Arnaldur Indridason, whose native Iceland is one country I haven’t visited and which is high on my to-be-travelled-to list.

And there was mention, too, of Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow, by Peter Hoeg, which some might call a ‘literary’ crime novel, and certainly a book which is memorable, especially perhaps for its early scenes. No mention,though, of Gunnar Staalesen, whom I discussed here a little while back.

The talking heads included the crime fiction commentator Barry Forshaw, and novelists Val McDermid and Hakan Nesser. The witty and amiable Nesser made the point that there are fashions in crime fiction as in other areas of life, and that one of these days, attention will shift elsewhere. Another interesting comment was that younger writers may be more interested in global issues than in exploring localised societies – I’m not sure whether I agree with this broad generalisation, but it certainly got me thinking.

The Essence of Crime Fiction

In The Freewheelin’ Hakan Nesser, there’s a quote from Nesser which sums up beautifully the essence of mystery fiction. Offhand, I can’t think of anyone who has expressed it much more economically yet more accurately.

‘The crime novel is interesting because it is so clearly linked to the two basic questions every story tries to answer. What has happened? What’s going to happen now? The first is to do with the past and arouses curiosity. The second looks to the future and arouses excitement. In a detective story or crime novel, the relationship between those two time frames is interesting. The sequence of events comes together in the crime, which is both an end and a beginning. This is where the criminal investigation begins, and at the same time the crime marks the end of a conflict in the past.’

This analysis, it seems to me, can be applied as much to a Hitchcock movie as to, say, Trent’s Last Case or The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Even some authors of classic, Golden Age style mysteries, played games with the starting point of their novels – Towards Zero by Agatha Christie and Tragedy at Law by Cyril Hare are examples.

I’m not yet ready to start a new book, but when the time comes, I’ll give some thought to Nesser’s way of looking at the genre. Who knows, it may prompt fresh ideas.

The Freewheelin' Hakan Nesser

One of the treats in the Crimefest delegate bag this year was a small booklet celebrating the achievements of guest of honour Hakan Nesser. The Freewheelin' Hakan Nesser turns out to be the sort of thing any author would love to have produced about himself – lavishly illustrated and full of intriguing snippets.

Included also are samples of a Nesser manuscript – he always starts by writing in longhand. Someone at Crimefest asked how anyone could be expected to read it – and he replied by saying he needs to type up from the longhand draft within a week, otherwise he too will be unable to decipher or recall what he wrote!

The booklet does not major on Nesser’s Van Veeteren novels, but give a flavour of his overall work, including the delightfully titled Kim Novak Never Bathed in Lake Genesaret; only about half of his books, it seems, fall squarely within the crime genre, and he is properly cautious about the merit of categorising books as crime or non-crime. He is formidably well-read, and says of his attitude as teenager: ‘An author who wrote a book where nobody died was an idiot, I was quite convinced of that.’

The assessment of Nesser’s work is thought-provoking and persuasive. His emphasis on the logic of narrative, the importance not only of detail, but choice of detail, the search for pattern in incident and character, these are elements in his writing that repay further study. For my part, I look forward eagerly to reading more of his books. I’m sure there’s a lot that a writer like me can learn from them..

Hakan Nesser

My first encounter with Hakan Nesser’s work was when Borkmann’s Point was first published in England a couple of years back. This introduced me to his series detective, Inspector Van Veeteren, and an intriguing setting in a country that is not named – some people suggest his home town is on the border between Germany and Holland, but who knows?

I haven’t yet read The Return, second in the English version of the series (we have not seen them in the chronological order in which they were written) but I found the third book, The Mind’s Eye, to be quite superb. I’d thought the solution of Borkmann’s Point – much as I enjoyed the story – to be slightly predictable, but The Mind’s Eye ticks all the boxes.

In person, Hakan Nesser is very tall and extremely articulate and personable. He’s a prolific novelist, and wrote ten books about Van Veeteren, although he’s now focusing on other things. He told delegates that he likes to write the first draft of his stories in longhand before typing them up, and he’s one of those authors who doesn’t know in detail how his books are going to develop when he starts writing them.

I talked to him briefly when he inscribed copies of his books for me, and at greater length during the Gala Dinner. His speech was arguably the best of a good bunch, and for someone whose first language is not English, it was an astonishing achievement. I found myself admiring him, as well as being deeply impressed that he is famous enough to warrant the production of a small book about him – The Freewheeling Hakan Nesser, copies of which were available to the delegates at Bristol. I've just obtained a copy of his latest UK book, Woman With a Birtmark, and I look forward to devouring it.