Local hero

Detective stories are incredibly popular here in Norway. Agatha Christie books are on prominent display in almost every bookstore, particularly near Easter, when one venerable tradition is to head up to a mountain cabin somewhere to ski or hike and to take a crime novel to read by the fire. Nowadays of course, there's also something on TV -- at Easter the "påskekrim" (Easter detective story) usually stretches out over several days, but you can also get your weekly fix on Friday night during "detektimen" (a mashup of the words for "detective" and "hour"). Lots of these are imported from England, but some are German; the hero of the German series "Derrick," which was popular here for many years from the mid-70s to 1999, recently died and it was front-page news in Norway -- certainly a much bigger deal here than in Germany. My own personal favorite was the Austrian show "Kommissar Rex" with a German shepherd Polizeihund who was an order of magnitude smarter than any of his several human partners.
Given the genre's popularity, it's no surprise that there are a number of Norwegian authors churning out whodunits once or twice a year here, but the only one that's ever interested me is Gunnar Staalesen, a Bergen author whose detective, Varg Veum, is a beloved local treasure. Andor's Christmas present every year to me is the most recent Staalesen, inscribed by the author; this year's Kalde hjerter ("Cold Hearts") is the best yet, according to the local paper's review. I can't wait to read it!
I can't resist saying something about his name. Varg is an old word for "wolf" and the ancient legal expression varg i veum ("wolf in the temple") is an expression designating a person outlawed for having violated the sanctity of a church or court by a criminal act. Can't let all those years of Scandinavian lingustics go to waste, now, can I?
When plans were announced to make six Veum films here, the choice of casting an Easterner rather than a Bergenser in the title role was very controversial. Dialects are badges of identity here, and the idea of Varg Veum speaking østlandsk was seen as heretical, rather like giving Philip Marlowe a deep Southern drawl or "youse guys" Brooklyn accent. Staalesen calmed the furor a bit by proclaiming himself pleased with the choice of casting Trond Espen Seim in the lead despite his unfortunate talefeil ("speech impediment").
Inki and I have begun to watch the movies on DVD and I have to say we're really enjoying them, and not just for the "hey, I know where that is" factor we also get watching films made in San Francisco. A fair bit of the exteriors of the movies we've seen so far has been shot right in our neighborhood, which is also fun, though I'm pretty sure there aren't any chop shops or illegal massage parlors six doors down from us in real life.... I thought I'd recommend them to anyone who wanted to see more of where we live, but I couldn't find them in the catalog at Netflix.com, so I guess they haven't come out in the States yet. I'll keep an eye out for them, though, and let you know if and when they become available Stateside.