FACT BECOMES FICTION?
Jonas Bonnier didn’t write true crime until he was asked — and introduced to the perpetrators, writes Mila de Villiers
Nordic noir is all the rage nowadays — from Jo Nesbo to Henning Mankel to The Killing — yet Jonas Bonnier, author of the Scandi true crime thriller The Helicopter Heist, is “not at all interested in crime or crime novels”. The Helicopter Heist is an exhilarating read based on the 2009 Västberga helicopter robbery; the heist was executed by four men and one spectacular helicopter roof-landing. The foursome broke into a Group 4 Securicor (G4S) cash depot in Stockholm, making off with 39-million kronor (about R88m). The criminals were caught. The money was never retrieved.
Marketed as “true crime fiction” (much to the affable Swede’s amusement), Bonnier states that he never considered writing a nonfiction account of the heist, reasoning that “I’m not a good non-fiction writer”.
Bonnier was approached by his agent to write the book; hesitant at first, he was persuaded when his agent asked him whether he would be interested in meeting the perpetrators. “I thought, ‘Okay, I’ve never met any of the characters in my book before’,” he laughs. (The Helicopter Heist is his ninth book.) “It was an opportunity to speak to the criminals, to tell their untold story. I can’t even imagine this novel written by me if I hadn’t met them.” Meeting with them convinced him to write the book.
The eccentric millionaire character known as Zoran in the book (Bonnier provided pseudonyms for the four perps) made a profound impression on Bonnier. He describes the man as a “larger than life character” who had “just stepped out of a novel”. This owing to the fact that “Zoran” ordered a glass of lukewarm water which he didn’t touch once (a trait shared with the fictionalised version of the criminal) and his wealth and extravagant lifestyle (think annual trips to the Cannes Film Festival and horse races in Monte Carlo.)
“I fell so in love with this character!” says Bonnier.
The other three perpetrators who, despite previous incarcerations, remain involved in Sweden’s underworld, were eager to meet Bonnier. “There’s this hierarchy in prison in Sweden and if you’re a robber you’re the shit,” Bonnier explains.
“And if you’re a robber and you used a helicopter — to some extent,” Bonnier interrupts himself, “I hadn’t used this word yet — but to some extent I think they’re proud of what they actually did.”
Bonnier maintains that the characters’ back stories are “very accurate”. Zoran aside, the character of Sami is a petty thief-turnedfamily-man who reverts to his old ways; Michal, a charming and savvy Lebanese
criminal who grew up in the impoverished suburbs of Stockholm; and the reckless adrenaline junkie, Niklas, whose appetite for adventure makes him agree to participate in the heist before one can say “Bloukrans bungee!”
During the “hours and hours” that Bonnier sat down with the four men, he did not once ask them about past crimes they’d committed, but focused on character sketches. “I asked them if they played Nintendo or Sega as kids. I asked them very specific questions that I needed to get out of them, like ‘if you walk up to a bar, what do you order?’”
Bonnier believes two members of the heist squad have read the book and knows for certain that the Michal character had “loved it”. “I specifically asked him what his friends thought and he said ‘no, no — everybody on every end-station likes it’.”
“End-stations” refers to the final stop of a Swedish subway route and they’re usually in very rough neighbourhoods. “So, the criminals enjoy it!” Bonnier relays with unbridled mirth.
As The Helicopter Heist is based on true events, Bonnier had to maintain a balance between fact and fiction; he says it is “tricky”. Readers would regularly ask him if particular passages were true, and after delivering his first draft to his publishers, he was told that a certain scene was not believable. “Well, that scene was something true!” says Bonnier.
Bonnier used the ageold adage of truth-isstranger-than-fiction to his advantage: “I realised that nobody would be able to tell the truth apart from fiction and if I had presented the book as ‘pages one to five are true and then there’s some fiction’, I would have skipped the fiction parts. So I tell them it’s all true!” he chortles.
That the criminals were able to pull off the heist was “almost unbelievable”, says Bonnier. He was fascinated by how the foursome went about planning the heist: “I mean, to blow up a roof is not just to blow up a roof! You have to use so many different techniques and find roofs in Stockholm that are constructed in the same way [as the roof of the GS4] and try it out.
“It’s amazing! I really enjoyed listening to them telling their stories. I also learned a lot about explosives,” he says, cracking up.
This is the first time Bonnier set out to write commercial fiction and he describes the experience as more time consuming than usual as he had less free rein with the content and was reliant on the advice of his publishers and crime-fiction writers. “I didn’t know how to write a crime novel.”
“I tried! I really tried!” is the exasperated response when asked whether he read any crime novels as preparation for writing The Helicopter Heist. “I watched maybe 40 movies — I love movies, and I generally like crime and thriller,” says the Oceans 11 fanatic.
Bonnier isn’t the only fan of heist movies — his gripping romp has been commissioned by Jake Gyllenhaal’s production company and will be released as a Netflix film. Bonnier is credited as a co-producer which, according to him, means that “I might be copied in one of the many e-mails that go around.”
Steven Knight (Dirty Pretty Things, Eastern Promises, Peaky Blinders) will be responsible for the script.
“This is a large production, no way will they involve some amateur from Sweden,” Bonnier laughs. “But names are good.
Big names are good, especially Jake Gyllenhaal.”
As for what’s next — if it doesn’t involve having to kill off a main character (“I get very, very attached to my characters, as long as they’re alive they’re interesting”), or a disillusioned, divorced drunkard of a detective as protagonist (this man really has it in for his fellow Scandi scribes!) — Bonnier’s definitely interested in trying his hand at a second true crime thriller. If only for the fact that the genre definition makes him snigger. Ja, tak! @milasekind