NORDIC
NOIR ~ in print and on the screen
‘The
Girl with the Millennium Laptop’
Eva Gabrielsson
Crime
writing has long been a favourite genre for film and TV to steal
from; Poirot, Sherlock Holmes and Philip Marlowe led the way to be
hotly pursued in more recent times by protagonists from the pens of
Rankin and Grisham. The latest genre hero to implicate the
screenwriters is the Scandinavian copper. Henning Mankell was lifted
into the mainstream by Kenneth Branagh’s intense adaptions of the
Wallender novels for BBC television. If Branagh’s portrayal is too
manic depressive for your tastes then grab the Swedish TV versions on
BBC4. Better still return to the source and read the books to watch
the movie in your head.
Today
the head of the Most Wanted crime writers’ list is another
Scandinavian, Steig Larsson, creator of the brilliant, zany
zeitgeist-riven Lizbeth Salmander. His heroine is a superb inversion
of contemporary victimhood; a neo-anorexic, abused, mentally ill geek
triumphs over evil with the courage, ingenuity and wit of an outlaw
punk. Larsson introduced us first to the ‘Girl with the Dragon
Tattoo’ – now a major movie – and followed up with ‘Girl who
Played with Fire’ and ‘The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest’.
All three are available in paperback from your local independent
bookshop.
The
latest Larsson thriller features a one-time political journalist, a
multi-million pound fortune, secrets embedded in a laptop, family
politics and untimely death. The ex-journo, scourge of extreme
fascist groups dies young, unaware of his latent legacy and mega
wealth. The heroine holds the secret but wants justice, and those
with the money want the laptop and its enigmatic contents.
But
‘The Girl with the Millennium Laptop’ is no novel.
The author died without leaving a will before any of his existing
trilogy were published. His estranged family has subsequently
received the rewards of his 65 million copy worldwide sales, but not
his companion of the previous 32 years Eva Gabrielsson. But she does
have the manuscript for the fourth Millennium book on his old laptop,
and cryptic notes outlining the plots of a further six novels. A
courtroom drama worthy of John Grisham at his finest is on the cards
and it can’t be long before the screenwriters work their alchemy
and get their art to imitate life.
JB
June 2012
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