Scandinavian Noir: In Pursuit of a Mystery

An in-depth and personal exploration of Scandinavian crime fiction as a way into Scandinavian culture at large

For nearly four decades, Wendy Lesser's primary source of information about three Scandinavian countries-Sweden, Norway, and Denmark-was mystery and crime novels, and the murders committed and solved in their pages. Having never visited the region, Lesser constructed a fictional Scandinavia of her own making, something between a map, a portrait, and a cultural history of a place that both exists and does not exist. Lesser's Scandinavia is disproportionately populated with police officers, but also with the stuff of everyday life, the likes of which are relayed in great detail in the novels she read: a fully realized world complete with its own traditions, customs, and, of course, people.

Over the course of many years, Lesser's fictional Scandinavia grew more and more solidly visible to her, yet she never had a strong desire to visit the real countries that corresponded to the made-up ones. Until, she writes, 'between one day and the next, that no longer seemed sufficient.' It was time to travel to Scandinavia.