Ruumiin kulttuuri 2/2007: English Summary The annual conference and AGM of the SKS (Crime Writers of Scandinavia) took place over the last weekend in May, this time in Helsinki, hosted by The Finnish Whodunnit Society. The guests of honour at Crime Scene Helsinki were celebrated crime writers Mark Billingham from Great Britain and Inger Frimansson from Sweden. The hosts were all smiles at the very first event on Friday: the Glass Key award for the year’s best Nordic crime novel was given to Matti Rönkä for his Ystävät kaukana/Långt från vänner (Friends at a Distance). A historic achievement – Rönkä is the first Finn ever to win the Key, coveted by Finland since 1997. Matti Rönkä (b. 1959) has brought a new eastern dimension to the genre in Finland. His protagonist Viktor Kärppä is a former Soviet soldier, now building contractor in Helsinki, having returned from Ingermanland to the country of his fathers. Rönkä himself works as a TV news anchorman of the Finnish Broadcasting Company and writes fiction in his leisure time. ”As an author I’m only a beginner”, the modest winner says in Kirsi Luukkanen’s interview (”Matti Rönkä Found the Keys to Victory”). In her report, Leena Korsumäki covers all events of the conference weekend. Mark Billingham tells us how it was his mathematics teacher who originally got him interested in crime stories. Like his pupils, the teacher was easily bored by his subject, so instead of working on mathematical problems he shared his enthusiasm for Sherlock Holmes with the class and read them Holmes stories! Mma Ramotswe, created by Scottish professor Alexander McCall Smith, is a different kind of detective hero. She lives in Botswana’s capital of Gaborone and runs ”The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency”. She wants people to treat each other kindly. Many readers do not think of Mma Ramotswe books as detective stories: there is hardly any crime in them, they deal with ”small problems”. On his recent visit to Helsinki McCall Smith admitted that the series does not try to dig deep into evil and cruelty. ”I’m interested in human kindness, goodness, and forgiveness”, the author says (”Stories about Goodness”). May 12th was the hundredth birthday of the creator of the Saint, Leslie Charteris (1907–1993). His own life was an adventure story: in the 1920s and 30s he worked as a bartender, prospected for gold, fished for pearls, worked on a rubber plantation, drove a bus, and toured England with a travelling circus. His hero Simon Templar alias the Saint was a best-selling product of the time whose adventures were depicted in books and comic strips as well as films. ”The Saint is an übermensch who solves puzzles and sails through his shenanigans as if fired by some sort of poetic inspiration”, Veli-Matti Huhta puts it in his essay (”The Logo of the Saint Was a Winner”). After 21 years as Editor-in-Chief of this quarterly, Risto Raitio has now been “a pensioner” a little over a year, concentrating on translating crime fiction. In Kyösti Salovaara’s extensive interview he ponders over the past, the future and the present – of Ruumiin kulttuuri, and of the phenomena of the Finnish whodunnit genre. The central message and focus of this magazine is embedded in the title of the interview: ”Murder Is Fun”. In her first crime novel Glennkill, German pseudonymous author Leonie Swann’s main characters are sheep, investigating the mysterious death of their shepherd. Swann began writing her bestseller – already translated into some 20 plus languages – when she lived a couple of years in urban Paris. “My husband and I then moved to Ireland for four months, to a remote spot on the west coast, with sheep as our neighbours.” When visiting Finland in March, Swann said she found that sheep are smart animals. They do not know about DNA or fingerprints, but they are alert and able to draw conclusions. They are quick to realise who is the daughter of the murdered man – they can smell it. (”In a World of Sheep and Books”) Other items Author Leena Lehtolainen lists ten of her favourite crime novels. Lately her own books have been huge successes in Germany and other Central European countries (”My Top Ten”). Cross-cultural author Sujata Massey, known for her Rei Shimura books, visited Finland in late April. Massey says that in her crime writing she wants to tackle serious issues and not only build puzzles. Among her themes are war-connected crimes, even years after the end of the war (”A Crime Called War”). Very short flash fiction crime stories are the current craze in the Internet. Juri Nummelin takes a look at this world of crime flashes. (”Crime Writers Captivated by Flash Fiction”) Tod Browning was one of the most popular film directors in the United States in the 1920s, but he landed in trouble in the next decade. The reason was Freaks, the movie that later became a valued minor classic, the best-known of his works. (”After Thrillers, the Freaks”) In the Movie Mania section: under review, among others, Grindhouse: Death Proof directed by Quentin Tarantino, and David Fincher’s Zodiac, based on real crime. Capital Sentences: 45 new crime titles on the agenda. Translated by Liisa Koskinen

Ruumiin kulttuuri 2/2007