Scandi nah
The usual tropes aren’t enough in this mildly macabre collection.
Copenhagen’s surreal sides are exposed in these 19 modestly sized, moderately macabre stories from a Danish author now resident in Surrey. They’ve been read on BBC Radio 4, which means linear plots, conventional cadences, characters unencumbered by nuances.
Most of them take a solitary male and lead or fling him into something and somewhere bizarre and inimical. Often there’s an old, malevolent figure and/or matching building, where you can almost hear the portentous organ notes swelling. You’ll spot the nasty possibilities pages ahead, though the protagonists never do.
So, a parasitic postie feeds a rambling rose. A sinister office block kills off a few new tenants. A lawyer leaves his office after a couple of beers, then wakes up next morning with a metal collar bolted around his neck. A nasty antique dealer is vanquished by Black China tea and an embroidered cushion. There are the usual tropes: sinister, semisentient furniture; hand at the window; unseen neighbour; art gallery where the lights are out. They’re fast, formulaic in a Roald Dahl way, and often pretty flimsy. Some nice flicks: an angel with a plastic wristwatch thwarts a suicide; a sweet old lady has a penchant for serial homicide; left luggage and an anonymous black Mercedes help a drab chap bloom. The best are those where comeuppance rules, okay?, or where the buttoned-down pop their buttons.
The pages are few; the font is large. I’m not complaining about the latter, but it does imply several degrees of padding. They won’t detain you for long. They won’t engage you for long, either. “Scandi noir!” honks the blurb. Make that mostly Scandi blah.