Imagine More for Women

Caroline Reilly discusses how Scandinavian women writers have become known for a more complex kind of crime fiction.

By Caroline ReillySeptember 28, 2024

• Fiction

• Noir

LAST OCTOBER, Camilla Läckberg threw a blood-soaked party complete with a hyperrealistic autopsy room and crimson cocktails served straight from blood bags. In attendance? Over 100 crime writers—all women, all Scandinavian.

The English-language thriller market is saturated with irrationally weak female characters. In this literary world of suburban voyeurism, women are by and large reduced to scorned ex-wives spiraling into madness, alcoholic abuse victims poised as obviously unreliable narrators, or baby-crazed demons driven to total debasement and inhumanity to fulfill a biological imperative. Readers flock to national and celebrity book clubs, rabid for the next heart-pounding and page-turning book about salacious lies, sexual appetites, and murderous impulses of the couple next door.

But in Scandinavia, writers imagine more for women. Rather than capitulating to tired tropes and exploiting the most common and deeply felt traumas—infidelity, infertility, sexual violence, mental illness—for gauche plot twists and shock value, Scandinavian noir tackles the nuances of womanhood in a way that stands in stark contrast to the sensationalized and scandalous context in which they often appear in English-language thrillers.

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The appeal of Nordic noir is hardly a point of contention in the literary world; the genre is marked by its labyrinthine, macabre plots, confronting portrayals of the human condition, and incisive commentary on sociopolitical issues. Books like Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2005) and Henning Mankell’s Wallander series earned international acclaim and propelled the bleak world of Scandinavian thrillers into homes far beyond the Nordic borders.

Läckberg has been Sweden’s best-selling author since 2006 and is often referred to as the Agatha Christie of Nordic noir. Her Fjällbacka series, which documents the life of Erica Falck—a journalist who returns to the small village she grew up in—is one of the most significant crime series in Europe.

Joining me via Zoom from Stockholm, Läckberg, whose books have sold over 35 million copies in 60 countries, is both confident and self-effacing. When I ask her what it is about Scandinavia that produces so many talents like herself, her answer is simple and immediate: the community of women around her.

“At the very beginning of my career, we had a group of around 50 female authors who would get together every three months and have dinner, or lunch, and just share and support each other,” Läckberg says. “We would talk about everything from family life to a new book we were working on or give each other advice with negotiations and marketing.”

When she wrote her first book, The Ice Princess (2003), men were dominating the genre—formative and lauded authors, to be sure, but the stories were all told from that perspective: male detectives fighting crime. “There were tons of women like me who wanted to do something different—wanted to put a woman as the main character, and describe a real woman and her everyday life combined with solving crimes.” Today, the roster of prolific female writers in Scandinavian noir feels endless: Viveca Sten (and now her daughter, Camilla Sten), Katrine Engberg, Ann-Helén Laestadius, Helene Tursten, Sara Blaedel, Anne Mette Hancock, Tove Alsterdal, Yrsa Sigurðardóttir, and far too many more to list comprehensively here.

But the distinction of women in Scandinavian noir extends beyond statistics. It’s about not only the number of women in the genre but also the stories they’re telling.

The first, says Läckberg, was Liza Marklund, who began her career as a journalist and went on to author the best-selling Annika Bengtzon series; the character was introduced to Swedish audiences in 1998’s The Bomber, and the series was later adapted for television. Viveca Sten also credits Marklund for showing her what was possible as a woman writer. “I remember distinctly, when she published her first novel, she wrote about a woman who was a mother,” Sten tells me. “She had to bring her kids to day care; she was struggling with her marriage. She had to solve crimes, but she also had to come up with something for dinner other than meatballs and spaghetti. And I remember reading it and thinking, Wow, I can relate to this.”

This balance can be a delicate line to walk with American audiences, says Anne Mette Hancock. Her first book, The Corpse Flower (2017), chronicles the work of journalist Heloise Kaldan and detective Erik Scháfer as the pair hunt down a missing woman tied to the brutal murder of a prominent attorney. It’s an emotionally fraught exploration of what it means to share familial ties with the world of child trafficking and sexual abuse. All three of Hancock’s books—Corpse Flower, The Collector (2018), and Ruthless (2023)—have earned critical acclaim from Scandi and American readers, but it was a passing mention of abortion that Hancock’s agent flagged to her as a point of concern. “Abortion is a complete nonissue here. In The Collector, Heloise gets pregnant and she wants an abortion, but she ends up losing the pregnancy,” she says. “But I wrote it like—she’s pregnant, and she’s not in love with the guy, and she doesn’t want a baby so she won’t have one. And my agent was like, ‘I don’t know how this is going to fly with American readers.’”

It’s important to note that English-language thrillers are not sanitized of these topics. It’s how they’re presented that distinguishes the Scandinavian approach. For English-language thrillers, these topics are more palatable as common plot devices to advance a story—to unmoor a female character or define her undoing, or maybe even provide her villain origin story. By contrast, the women of Scandinavian noir write about these issues in a way that appreciates their complexity. They decentralize tropes about sex and fertility and marriage without erasing them entirely, instead weaving the deeply personal contours of navigating life as a woman into larger political narratives. Women do not, in fact, lose their minds or moral compunction because they are infertile, because they have abortions—Scandinavian noir seems to grant us that much. What results are books that feel—books that are—truer to the way women actually live.

That is not to say that English-language authors are not capable of drawing out such nuances in their work, and they often do. But not by habit, the way they’re present in Scandinavian noir. Perhaps this gulf is in part an indictment of the sociopolitical climate that perpetuates and normalizes these stereotypes and that engenders a demand for literature that reflects it. If we live in a society where abortion is seen as a traumatizing event and infertility as a moral failing, for example, it’s not unexpected that popular literature reflects that. (It does not, however, negate the fact that such characterizations are factually incorrect and derogatory.)

This crucial distinction, still, is best contextualized not by the skill of thriller authors writ large but by the conditions—marketplace, political, or otherwise—that dictate the lens through which female characters can be written.

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To understand why the women of Scandinavian noir feel so uniquely nuanced, it’s important to understand the political climate of the region—particularly as it pertains to gender equity. “Nordic countries are famous for equal opportunities for men and women. If people believe that the substance or self-worth of a woman is tied to marriage or motherhood—that’s a very one-dimensional view of what constitutes a woman,” says Sten. “If you expand your narrative a little bit, you will see that, of course, even a woman whose husband has abandoned her still exists. She has friendships, and relationships, maybe she has children. She has work and education and memories.”

This extends beyond issues of gender equity too. There can be no such thing as a successful Scandinavian domestic thriller that does not grapple with the gender dynamics of sex and power—just as there can be no such thing as a procedural without a critical examination of the fault lines in the criminal justice system, no books about affluent communities bloodied with revenge killings and secret children that exist in a vacuum away from the sociopolitical climate that are inescapably linked to the circumstances they create.

Take Sara Blædel’s 2017 novel, The Lost Woman. A quick scan of the plot summary shows that it’s a thriller about a seemingly random execution-style killing; a few chapters in, you realize that what you are reading is an unblinking examination of the politics—and emotional implications—of assisted suicide, class, and what it means to have a dignified death.

“I believe that the strength of Scandi noir is that we manage to reflect the reality of the society we are writing about,” says Blædel about the way political plotlines are balanced alongside the authentic lives of her characters. “By keeping so many things familiar, it becomes genuine when addressing the darker sides as well.”

The practice of contextualizing plotlines with political commentary is quintessentially Scandi. “In the ’80s, there was a crime-writing couple called Sjöwall and Wahlöö who started the tradition of putting social and political topics into crime stories,” says Läckberg. Her books are written to entertain, she says—but political undertones are inescapable, and she thinks that is to the benefit of the reader. Someone might be more receptive to thinking critically about these issues if they’re offered up in the form of literary entertainment.

The depiction of religious sentiment is among the most palpable gulfs between English-language thrillers and Scandinavian noir, a reflection of the way Scandinavians engage with religion and faith. “Scandinavian countries are some of the most secular countries in the world,” says Blædel. “I think we are just used to being able to criticize openly the things we do see issues with, without the fear that it will offend the readers.”

And Läckberg sees a direct correlation between gender equity and the secularism of Scandinavian culture. She recognizes the inherent gender inequity in most major religions and says that the agnosticism in Scandinavian society is part and parcel with the gender politics—and that it’s not a coincidence this is reflected in the female characters of the genre.

“We never factor God into our decisions,” Läckberg says. “It’s not like in America when you mention abortion. For example, in America, [there’s the conversation of] ‘Is it a Christian thing to do? Am I breaking God’s intention and law by having an abortion?’ That is not on the list for Swedish women.”

Beyond the particulars of gender inequity, racism, religious extremism, and other specific sociopolitical issues, Scandinavian literature overall is notably skilled at drawing out existential and philosophical questions by confronting readers with the lack of neatness in the space between right and wrong—the emotional motivations behind harm and justice and interpersonal connection.

Rarely is a perpetrator in Scandinavian noir wholly unempathetic—“The best antagonists are not all good or bad,” Hancock told me.

These books force us to confront why an antagonist might commit a heinous crime—to sit with an uncomfortable empathy for them. Consider Läckberg’s The Preacher (2004), which offers an unflinching look at the inextricable hold that religious extremism has on its antagonist.

There is no such thing as a perfect hero either—“I love a good bitch,” Läckberg proclaimed on our call.

This depth of analysis of the human condition is what truly makes these books so special. That, combined with the acuity of the female perspective from these massively talented writers, provides some of the most visceral and moving crime and suspense literature on the market.

Sten says the Scandinavian way is to thank for that.

Scandinavians, she says, are generally happy people, and well cared for, with robust social services. That is not to say that the society is without its problems, many of which are represented in their writing. But with education and healthcare highly accessible, she believes the literature consumed by Scandinavian readers has the room for more complexity. “Consider Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. If you are basically [struggling to meet your basic needs],” she says, “you might not have time to engage with higher intellectual dilemmas. But if you are [secure], you are fine spending the whole night discussing a tiny political detail while you are drinking red wine, because the rest of those needs are satisfied.”

And so, while the genre is rife with crimes and villains that would have even Thomas Harris sleeping with the light on, they achieve a level of genuine, spine-tingling fright without ever being gratuitous or indulgent.

“I'm much more interested in the personal life of a female protagonist than reading 10 or 20 pages about the violence that this person is being subjected to,” says Sten. “I’m not interested in reading about brains that explode and fingers that are broken and knife cuts that go deep into the skin.” She continues: “It’s much more interesting to understand who this person is. Why is she doing what she’s doing? What are her sorrows? What does she enjoy? What does she value? What is important in her life? Is it loyalty or a sense of duty, or what is she looking for in a partner?”

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The highest praise that one can give to a thriller, it often seems, is that it is “propulsive,” or a “one-sitting read.” But I’ve never finished a Nordic noir in one day. They’re not quick reads; they’re often dense. They demand so much of their reader—like a cinematic epic, or a four-course meal, crafted to be savored as an experience. They’re refreshing and nourishing for a reader—that balance of immersive and visceral storytelling and restraint, just enough to keep you rapt until the last page but not so much that the reading experience feels gauche or cheap.

As it turns out, that balance, too, is uniquely Scandinavian—so much so that there’s a word for it that doesn’t translate into English, or French, or German. “You just want ‘lagom,’” says Sten. “You don’t want too much, but you don’t want too little. You want somewhere in the middle, and it’s fine. That’s a very unique Swedish word, and I think it says something about our cultural identity and how we approach life.”

And so, it would appear, their literature.

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Featured image: Anna Boberg. After the Massacre. Study from North Norway. Nationalmuseum Stockholm, photo: Cecilia Heisser (NM 4262). CC0, nationalmuseum.se. Accessed September 23, 2024. Image has been cropped.