Bubbling mud and spilt blood
Award-winning authors Kati Hiekkapelto and Lilja Sigurdardottir talk to Craig Sisterson about bringing something different to Nordic noir and travelling to New Zealand for the first time
Seventy-five years ago, Maurice Questing was murdered. A rather shady businessman looking to seize control of a mismanaged thermal resort in New Zealand, Questing was lured to a grisly death among its boiling mud pools. It was a shocking crime read all over the world; not because of the headline-grabbing nature of Questing’s death, but because it occurred within the pages of an Inspector Alleyn murder mystery written by Christchurch’s Dame Ngaio Marsh.
One of the world’s most popular authors of the middle part of the 20th century (and still fondly read nowadays), Marsh gave Northern Hemisphere mystery lovers a distinctive taste of her home country in Colour Scheme (1943), one of only four of her 32 novels she set in New Zealand. Now, decades later, book lovers and storytellers from several countries are gathering in Rotorua, among the sulphur fumes and bubbling mud, to celebrate the literary descendants of Dame Ngaio and her peers at New Zealand’s first-ever crime-writing festival.
“I’ve always felt a strong kinship with New Zealand, and I think most Icelanders do,” says Lilja Sigurdardottir , who won the Blood Drop Award for Iceland’s best crime novel last year and is travelling more than 16,000km to appear as one of the international Guests of Honour at Rotorua Noir on January 26 and 27. “The similarities in the landscape are such that we have always felt your south part with its big snowy mountains and the north part with its volcanic activity are very much like Iceland. We also have some historical comparisons from being colonies then developing into a social democracy. I have to admit I have been drooling over photos from your exciting country and
I can’t wait to see it with my own eyes.” F innish author Kati Hiekkapelto, who writes an award-winning series of mysteries starring Balkan war refugee turned detective Anna Fekete, is also looking forward to her first trip to New Zealand — “I’m dreaming of surf lessons” — and sees some similarities with her home country. “Finland and New Zealand are the first countries in the world that gave women the right to vote,” says Hiekkapelto. “This is something we should be really proud of. Both our countries have indigenous people. The way Finns and Finland have treated Sami people in history is more like a shame . . . I am very interested to learn more about Ma¯ ori culture, past and present.”
Hiekkapelto and Sigurdardottir will get an early chance to experience Ma¯ ori culture alongside other local and international festival attendees. Rotorua Noir is opening with a po¯ whiri at Te Papaiouru Marae before shifting venues for onstage sessions and other events discussing and celebrating various aspects of crime, mystery, and thriller writing (for page, stage, and screen).
“I enjoy crime fiction because of its flexibility,” says Hiekkapelto. “I did not consciously plan to be a crime writer. I only wanted to write. I happened to get an idea about a crime and a female protagonist with an immigrant background and then I wrote it. Crime fiction can be highly social and political and yet entertaining. At least that’s what I try to achieve with my writing.”
Sigurdardottir, who writes television screenplays and stage plays as well as thriller novels (two of her six books have been translated into English so far, the latest is Trap), says she has always loved crime fiction. “But then again I love all kinds of fiction. As a writer, I think I’m drawn to types of storytelling that have a strong form. I like wrestling with the form, getting it right, moulding the story so that it gives the most impact. I really like the strength of storytelling in crime fiction — the plot lines and the characters have to be strong for the story to be good.” H iekkapelto and Sigurdardottir are part of a new generation of Nordic crime writers who’ve taken the baton from the likes of Henning Mankell, Stieg Larsson, and Jo Nesbo, and are refreshing the genre in new and exciting ways beyond loner detectives and wintry landscapes. Hiekkapelto melded her imagination with personal experiences when she created Anna Fekete, the child refugee from former Yugoslavia who becomes a Finnish detective and stars in three books so far in an award-winning series. “When I started to write The Hummingbird there were not many books in Finland that were truly dealing with immigrant issues and I wanted to write one,” says Hiekkapelto. “I felt I had a lot to tell. I did my Masters’ thesis about racism in Finnish schools, I was teaching refugee children, and my friends are from all over the world. I have lived in the Hungarian region of Serbia and I know that area, culture, and language too.”
In the third instalment, The Exiled, Fekete is holidaying in her Serbian hometown when she’s drawn to investigate the death of a man who snatched her bag, and the disappearance of a gypsy girl who was with him. Facing roadblocks from her family as well as local cops, Fekete digs into a case that begins to collide not only with the gypsy and refugee communities but alarmingly with her own past and the death of her policeman father many years before. The Exiled is an elegantly written mystery packed with intriguing characters and a superb sense of place. Hiekkapelto is unafraid to scratch at contemporary prejudices and nuanced issues.
Sigurdardottir also eschews Nordic noir tropes with her edgy and pacy tales of international drug running and financial shenanigans and lesbian antiheroes with nary a pensive alcoholic copper in sight. “I have been told off by Icelandic critics for not being Nordic enough,” she says, “but I think it is very restrictive for a writer to be told to write in a certain style and about certain subjects, just because you were born in a certain country. I write what I want to write about, and financial crime and drug smuggling are very Icelandic crimes.” A peripatetic upbringing that also included Spain, Sweden, and Mexico may have helped Sigurdardottir develop an insideroutsider perspective on her home country. “It is really hard for me to explain to people what a multicultural mix I am,” she says. “I have sets of conflicting life views, customs and habits, adapted from many countries and this shows in my writing. The writer’s character always shines through in a book. I have been told my stories are a mix of Nordic noir and Mexican telenovela. That about sums it up, I think.”
Sigurdardottir and Hiekkapelto are looking forward to attending Rotorua Noir then exploring New Zealand further. “I have never been that far away from home so it will be a great adventure for me,” says Hiekkapelto, who lives on a remote island in northern Finland and sings in a punk band alongside being a crime writer and teacher. “I’m looking forward to meeting Kiwi authors and readers, having a good spa, then exploring your amazingly beautiful country for a couple of months.”
Sigurdardottir and her partner are looking forward to upping their Vitamin D levels, given Iceland experiences more than 18 hours of daily darkness at this time of year. “All Icelanders are now kind of depressed by the dark. So we really want to enjoy the sun, the landscape, the food and the people in New Zealand. All the while I’ll be plotting the second half of my new book and jotting down notes for it. I bet New Zealand will be a great inspiration.”