”I have it in my body,” says Anna Jansson about the Swedish island of Gotland, her favorite crime story setting. Photo: Sören Jansson / Norstedts

Anna Jansson, Mari Jungstedt, Camilla Läckberg and Åsa Larsson are some of the Swedish crime writers who have debuted very successfully in the last decade. By setting their novels in the places they love – and sometimes live – these four authors take readers on an armchair tour of the sites and sounds of Sweden, very much in the same way that Henning Mankell’s Wallander series has put Ystad on the literary map.

Island intrigue – Gotland
Jansson and Jungstedt both set their books on Gotland, an island off the south-east coast of Sweden in the Baltic Sea. Once a major medieval trading center, the island now attracts almost 800,000 tourists per year.

Jansson grew up in Visby, the only town on Gotland, until she moved to Örebro in 1979 to study nursing. “It’s easier to write about a place you really know,” she says. “You can use the surroundings to describe a feeling.”

Impressions from her childhood have made their way into her novels. “Even though I’m sitting here in Örebro, I can smell it, I can feel the wind. I have it in my body,” she says.

 
Mari Jungstedt feels that Gotland provides the perfect backdrop for her stories. Photo: Anna-Lena Ahlström

Jungstedt’s detective stories also play out on Gotland. She visited the island for the first time as a child and fell in love with the beaches. Later on, she fell in love with a man from Gotland.

“Gotland is perfect as a crime scene because it’s an island and you have this kind of closed atmosphere. You have the coast line like a circle around you,” she says.

“Gotland also has a very exciting history, which I used in my third book, ‘The Inner Circle’ (Den inre kretsen), where I write about archaeology. The history is very visible; in Visby, for instance, the wall around the city, the church and the ruins in the middle of the town are all from the 1200s.”

Murder by the sea – Fjällbacka
Läckberg’s crime scene and hometown is Fjällbacka, a seaside village of 1,000 inhabitants situated 150 kilometers north of Gothenburg.


In Camilla Läckberg’s novels Fjällbacka, on the Swedish west coast, is the setting for mysterious murders. Photo: Benny Ottosson / Maskot

“It’s a place I know very well,” Läckberg says. “I think a small town is more interesting and dynamic than a big city. It’s the setting that gives the flavor.”

In the 19th century, Fjällbacka was one of the largest fishing ports in Sweden. Läckberg says the town’s history has shaped its inhabitants – and her characters. “The people there don’t take things for granted and always want to be one step ahead of fate. I try to bring that out in my books as well,” she says.

Her books are full of descriptions of the town’s landmarks, such as the Ingrid Bergman square and Fjällbacka church. She says the details make it authentic. “In ‘The Preacher’ (Predikanten), they take the boat out for a day in the archipelago. Bringing your own food and spending the day out on the cliffs is a very typical thing to do in Fjällbacka,” Läckberg says. 

Crime in the cold – Kiruna

Two successful books: “The Preacher” (left) is being filmed for Swedish television and “The Blood Spilt” was voted Best Swedish Crime Novel 2004. Photos: Forum and Bonnier

Larsson has set her three novels in the northern mining town of Kiruna, a destination for nature lovers. Kiruna’s unique attributes make it a popular tourist destination, and the perfect crime scene. “It’s really God’s gift that I grew up there. It’s the perfect setting for a crime novel,” Larsson says.

“Kiruna is about 200 kilometers north of the Arctic Circle. It’s a beautiful environment with the midnight sun and the cold, dark winters. Besides the mine, there is Esrange, the space center, and a really interesting tourist industry as well, like the Ice Hotel in Jukkasjärvi, and these are really interesting tools to work with when you write about crimes.”

Her novel “The Blood Spilt” (Det blod som spillts) offers potential visitors some advice about how to get on with the natives: “No ‘how-the-heck-do-you-endure-the-long-winters-when-the-sun-doesn’t-even-come-up’ talk. Even if they joke about it themselves.”

No chance to travel to Sweden? Well then, just take a tour of the country through books like Anna Jansson’s “Strange Bird.” Photo: Norstedt

Putting crime on the literary map
So are Visby, Fjällbacka or Kiruna destined to become the next Ystad, where fans from around the world flock to follow in the footsteps of their favorite fictional detective?

All three towns are already, at least partly, dependent on tourism and the books of all four authors have been extremely popular abroad – and will reach even broader audiences once they hit the screen. All of Jungstedt’s four books are being filmed by German television, while Swedish television is dramatizing two of Läckberg’s novels, “The Ice Princess” (Isprinsessan) and “The Preacher”. Larsson’s mystery “Sun Storm” (Solstorm) is currently being shot in Kiruna, featuring Swedish actress Izabella Scorupco as the lawyer Rebecka Martinsson.

Keep your eyes open (and look over your shoulder) as Sweden’s female crime writers continue to put small-town Sweden on the literary map.

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Charlotte West is an editor and writer, as well as an avid bookworm and traveler. She’s already worked her way through “Ice Princess” and “The Blood Spilt” and is planning to finish “The Inner Circle” and “Strange Bird” on the boat to Gotland this summer.

The author alone is responsible for the opinions expressed in this article.

Classification: A202EN

© Photo 1: Sören Jansson / Norstedts
© Photo 2: Anna-Lena Ahlström
© Photo 3: Benny Ottosson / Maskot
© Photo 4: Forum
© Photo 5: Bonnier
© Photo 6: Norstedt