kjell ola dahl

Book Review: The Courier by Kjell Ola Dahl

/ Tony / 1 Comment

From the PR: “In 1942, Jewish courier Ester is betrayed, narrowly avoiding arrest by the Gestapo. In a great haste, she escapes to Sweden, saving herself. Her family in Oslo, however, is deported to Auschwitz.

In Stockholm, Ester meets the resistance hero, Gerhard Falkum, who has left his little daughter and fled both the Germans and allegations that he murdered his wife, Åse, who helped Ester get to Sweden. Their burgeoning relationship ends abruptly when Falkum dies in a fire.

And yet, twenty-five years later, Falkum shows up in Oslo. He wants to reconnect with his daughter. But where has he been, and what is the real reason for his return? Ester stumbles across information that forces her to look closely at her past, and to revisit her war-time training to stay alive…

Written with Dahl’s trademark characterization and elegant plotting, The Courier sees the hugely respected godfather of Nordic Noir at his best, as he takes on one of the most horrific periods of modern history, in a exceptional, shocking thriller.”

First read of 2019 and, while it’s really early days to be making such statements given we’ve just passed the halfway point of January; The Courier is going to take some beating in the best read of 2019 stakes.

An instant classic, The Courier contains everything I look for in a book – it’s set in WW2 and uses that time period’s underlying menace and drama, it’s got a deep, involved plot that spans across different periods in time, there’s mystery and espionage everywhere, it’s populated by great characters that you actually care about and it’s written in the formidable style of the master that is Kjell Ola Dahl. It almost feels like it was tailor made for my bookshelves.

There’s a great many well-read books  on WW2 in my library yet, aside from David Howarth’s We Die Alone (recommended if you’re after some non-fiction on the subject) and summaries in overview works, life in Norway during its occupation is an area I was fairly unaware of – certainly when you factor in the persecution of the country’s Jewish population at the hands of both Nazi intruder and Norway’s own collaborative government and STAPO. The Courier details this period in a manner that is both authoritative and realistic as a result of the author’s research / knowledge without being heavy handed in its portrayal and it’s that which makes it a great piece of historical fiction – as well as adding an additional level of underlying menace to the tension of the mystery in those chapters set in 1942.

What am I trying to say here? I’ve often toyed with setting a story against the backdrop of global conflict and the possibilities but it’s full of pitfalls. Using a period as well documented and broad as the Second World War can go either way – it takes a gifted writer to frame a story against such a vast backdrop and not throw the kitchen sink at it. For every Winter in Madrid or All The Light We Cannot See there’s a dozen City of Thieves –  that overdo it and try to hit try every emotional and historical touch point whether it’s relevant or not.

Kjell Ola Dahl is an exceptionally talented writer and manages to set a gripping story against a backdrop of global menace and terror that perfectly blends the historical with the thrill of fiction in an authoritative manner.  The Courier sits up there with my favourites of the historical fiction genre like Fatherland and Gorky Park and the aforementioned All The Light We Cannot See.

The Courier is peopled with characters that really hook you in and a mystery that will keep you glued until its, frankly, shocking reveal. Kjell Ola Dahl, best known for his Oslo Detectives novels, has here created a deep, slow-burning thriller that’s not only one of the best reads of the year but one of the best reads of the genre.

My thanks to Karen at Orenda Books for my copy – it really was right up my alley .

Blog Tour: The Ice Swimmer by Kjell Ola Dahl – Guest Post

/ Tony / 1 Comment

Like any avid reader and devourer of the written word I carry a continually evolving ‘wish list’ with me (it’s on my phone) to refer to whenever I find myself in a bookshop. At the top of that list are a couple of authors represented by name only. These are authors where it’s a case of wanting to get hold of anything they’ve written.

Kjell Ola Dahl is amongst those authors. He’s one of the godfathers of the Nordic Noir genre and since I was introduced to his Oslo Detectives series with last year’s Faithless I’ve been anxious to read my way though his back catalogue. This year’s The Ice Swimmer (review to follow) is another ridiculously good installment in the series – absorbing and masterfully written.

As such I’m delighted, as part of the blogtour for The Ice Swimmer (out on ebook now and paperback April 30th via the wonderful Orenda Books) to host a guest post from the author himself. So I’ll shut up and get out of the way…

My first novel was a police procedural, and I didn’t reflect much on the implications of this choice at that time. I was inspired by writers like Ed McBain, who wrote about Steve Carella and a collective of police officers solving crimes in the 87th precinct in a fictive city called Isola. One thing I liked about those books was that McBain wrote about the full collective. The readers got to know many of the police officers. And when McBain changed the main protagonist in some books, Steve Carella was always there, although not always at the front of the action. McBain even chose criminals for protagonists in some of his books.

After publishing Lethal Investments I did not stay with my police officers, and I went on to write other things. The second book in the Oslo Detectives series was published years after the first one. But then I said to myself, you cannot stop at two: A trilogy is the thing. So I was quick this time and published the third book in the series a year later. But after that novel – The Man in the Window – I returned to my old sins, writing other things.

This year in Norway, I will publish the ninth book in the Oslo detectives series. I still write other things in between – fiction, non-fiction, short stories, crime fiction – and I always write under my own name. Ed McBain used a lot of pseudonyms: Richard Marsten, Hunt Collins, Curt Cannon, Ezra Hannon and more, and not one of these names was his own! Privately he called himself Evan Hunter. And even the name Evan Hunter was a pseudonym: his Christian name was Salvatore Albert Lombino. It is like one of those Russian dolls. Inside every name, new ones would pop up. I guess Mr Hunter/Lombino himself had some sort of system for the use of names. His production was huge.

The use of pseudonyms is a widespread habit among writers – especially writers of crime fiction. Even Georges Simenon used a lot of them. And the truth is, I don’t really understand why.

Many of my fellow writers use their series to explore their one and only protagonist. I stick to the method of Ed McBain. I explore my collective. The protagonist in the Ice Swimmer is Lena Stigersand, a female police officer in her mid-thirties. She was not present in the first book in the series, and first appeared with minor roles in the two novels previous to the Ice Swimmer. Even if she is the protagonist in The Ice Swimmer, there is one super protagonist in the series – Mr Gunnarstranda. In fact, everything in the series rotates around him, and he has developed over the years. He is no longer as grumpy as he was in the first book. And these days he is more into jazz music than he was to begin with. I think it is because I know him better now. But he is still a widower. And he still doesn’t have a first name. That is a fact. I have never dared to suggest a first name for him. I fear he won’t like my suggestions very much. Personally, I think that shows how strong he is as a character. He is still mysterious to me, which means that he will still be able to surprise me. It also tells me that I will write more about him. I am still curious about his whereabouts and especially curious about his first name. But I doubt I will ever find out what it is.