Ruumiin kulttuuri 1/2007: English Summary In February, the Clew of the Year award for past year’s best ’criminal’ achievement was given to Tapani Bagge for his novel Musta taivas (Black Sky). The jury commended the book’s enjoyable language and rich gallery of believable characters. ”The basic themes of literature are all there – freedom, power, love, and death – and they are presented with clever humour, warmth and tolerance.” After his early career in the field of pulp fiction magazines, and after the turn of the century, Bagge (b. 1962) has written fast-paced, action-packed crime novels, located in his home town Hämeenlinna and peopled with small-time crooks and hardened criminals, arms dealers, dope addicts, and the police. The first novel was Puhaltaja (The Jack) in 2002, and there are now five books in the series. ”I don’t really believe in the traditional hero, definitely not in just one hero,” the happy winner says in Marja Istala Kumpunen’s interview (”Banknotes Falling from the Black Sky”). ”My books feature a kind of collective, a collection of anti-heroes. The method brings variety to the plot as the story is told from many perspectives. Changing the perspective also gives me a chance to introduce irony.” The special commendation reserved for a foreign author went to Norway this time, to Jo Nesbø for his six-volume (so far) series of Harry Hole novels. Nesbø is an author and a musician – he sings and plays the guitar in Di Derre, a popular Norwegian band – and he says the two jobs go well together. The Harry Hole series is to have at least a couple of more volumes, but Nesbø knows already that in the last book the hero will come to no good. ”The series about Harry Hole shall come to an absolute end, I’ll kill him, and it won’t be pretty,” he announces to Heikki Ollikainen who interviewed the author late last year when he visited Finland (”The Keys to Jo Nesbø’s Success”). Early March saw the hundredth birthday of Classic Finnish crime writer Marton Taiga, real name Martti Löfberg (1907–1969). Having started writing in the late 1920s, Löfberg was a real professional, a master of popular fiction who published 52 books and countless short stories in magazines. He is particularly remembered for creating Inspector William J. Kairala, of the Helsinki police force. The sympathetic and spirited Kairala stories are still well worth reading today, Paula Arvas writes in her anniversary article (”A Toast to Marton Taiga!”). David Goodis (1917–1967), author of hypnotic crime novels with few or no comforting aspects, is having a renaissance in the United States, Juri Nummelin reminds us in his article (”The Dark Corridors of David Goodis”). New editions of the books are coming out, and recently this classic noir writer was paid tribute in Philadelphia, with a literary event titled GoodisCon. ’The poet of the losers’ whose novels have been turned into a number of films was forgotten in his home country for quite some time, whereas in France Goodis has been steadily popular. ”Many modern crime novels are full of (porno)graphic violence. This voyeuristic way of writing only glorifies violence,” says British author Joolz Denby (”Art, Drugs, and Tattoos”). She wonders why it is that the detailed description of all things horrible is nowadays often women’s domain. ”I want to write realistically, not voyeuristically,” she said to Tiina Torppa who interviewed her at the time of the Helsinki Book Fair. Denby says she writes about crime because she wants give an explanation to why evil happens. Her novel Billie Morgan was shortlisted for the Orange prize for literature in 2005. Other items Professor Raimo Salokangas, co-owner of the Blue Moon publishing house, which specializes in translations of high-quality crime fiction, lists ten of his favourite mysteries over the years (”My Top Ten”). Charles Dickens’s classic novel Bleak House, featuring one of the earliest professional detectives in fiction, the persevering Inspector Bucket, has finally been translated into Finnish, brilliantly by Kersti Juva. Following the publication of the translation, Finnish television’s Channel One ran the British drama series based on the novel, starring Gillian Anderson, Anna Maxwell Martin, Alun Armstrong and Charles Dance (”Mysteries of the Bleak House”). In the comics section: Alan Moore’s famous Watchmen; the two new volumes in the French action series XIII; Modesty Blaise’s adventures, plus Finnish crime and thriller comics, authored by, among others, Jarmo Somermäki and Mikko Ketola & Anssi Rauhala. In the Movie Mania section: the new Hannibal Lecter prequel Hannibal Rising, directed by Peter Webber, is presented to us by Jouko Raivio who has himself written horror novels. Other new releases: the film version of Patrick Süskind’s bestselling novel, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (directed by Tom Tykwer), and the Finnish movie V2 Jäätynyt enkeli (V2 Frozen Angel) featuring private detective Jussi Vares (directed by Aleksi Mäkelä). Capital Sentences are passed on crime and suspense books of late 2006 and early 2007. Translated by Liisa Koskinen

Ruumiin kulttuuri 1/2007