Crime Fiction: Reading Scars
London Review Bookshop, Sunday, June 19, 2011 at 2pm
Karin Alvtegen discusses Betrayal.; Håkan Nesser reads from The Inspector and Silence.
Detection is the process of reconstructing events from the traces they have left – a body or a weapon is found, or a trace of blood, or even a speck of dust under a fingernail. From such evidence, a crime is unearthed. Behind crime fiction’s gripping narratives, there often lies a more incisive portrayal of a society than can be found in more obvious commentaries; and it offers a way to confront ideas of good and evil in a shades-of-grey world, where simple moral certainties aren’t so easy to find. Karin Alvtegen’s psychological crime thrillers include Missing, which in 2001 won the Glass Key, the premier Nordic crime writing award, and Shadow and Betrayal. Håkan Nesser is also a Glass Key winner; his latest book to be translated into English is The Inspector and Silence, starring his detective Van Veeteren, now retired and thinking of becoming a bookseller – until a young girl goes missing from a nearby religious summer school… Tickets: £9 (£6 concessions and LRB subscribers - contact the shop for details) Book online at http://www.lrbshop.co.uk/events (FlossieT)… (more)
Detection is the process of reconstructing events from the traces they have left – a body or a weapon is found, or a trace of blood, or even a speck of dust under a fingernail. From such evidence, a crime is unearthed. Behind crime fiction’s gripping narratives, there often lies a more incisive portrayal of a society than can be found in more obvious commentaries; and it offers a way to confront ideas of good and evil in a shades-of-grey world, where simple moral certainties aren’t so easy to find. Karin Alvtegen’s psychological crime thrillers include Missing, which in 2001 won the Glass Key, the premier Nordic crime writing award, and Shadow and Betrayal. Håkan Nesser is also a Glass Key winner; his latest book to be translated into English is The Inspector and Silence, starring his detective Van Veeteren, now retired and thinking of becoming a bookseller – until a young girl goes missing from a nearby religious summer school… Tickets: £9 (£6 concessions and LRB subscribers - contact the shop for details) Book online at http://www.lrbshop.co.uk/events (FlossieT)… (more)
6
