Crime Writers

Photo: Ola Erikson / Forflex (2014)

Sample of authors

Guillou, Jan

Swedish author and journalist, who was born in Södertälje and grew up in Saltsjöbaden. Jan Guillou, who has French ancestry (his paternal grandfather was the French ambassador in Helsinki), dropped out of his university studies in Law, and instead concentrated his efforts on a career as a journalist, at an early stage becoming known for his committed and politically radical reporting – Guillou has...

Further reading

Theme article

History of crime fiction

By: Johan Wopenka

Depending upon how one wishes to define the concept ‘crime fiction’, it is possible to trace its history and roots back in time. When Dorothy L. Sayers compiled her comprehensive three-volume anthology Great Short Stories of Detection, Mystery and Horror (1928–34) she started with two stories from the Old Testament, and when Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. Lee (alias Ellery Queen) wrote their fundamental The Detective Short Story : A Bibliography (1942), they listed eight Chinese collections of short stories which are believed to have been written down between 600 A.D. and 1800 A.D., some of them containing stories based on an older, oral tradition.

Further reading

Literary figures

Henrik Pettersson

Gender: Male

A 30-year-old small-time crook, slim, medium blond, unmarried and without empathy. He lives in Stockholm where he neglects several jobs and relaxes with drugs and sex until he gets into very serious trouble in a trilogy of crime novels by Anders de la Motte and is hunted and not only by the police. Henrik ‘HP’ Pettersson’s big sister Rebecca Normén is, however, a police officer and can help him wh...

Further reading