It’s been funny seeing the huge popularity of Scandinavian crime novels follow by own introduction to the genre by a Swedish ex-girlfriend. Spending more than a decade together meant that I had a reasonable insight into Swedish culture when I was introduced to the original Wallander series and films.

That was followed by going back to the original source, the Martin Beck novels by Per Wahllo and Maj Sjowall. And also expanding my reading to other Scandinavian countries. I’ve obviously head of Jo Nesbo, but only got around to reading my first Harry Hole novel when The Leopard: A Harry Hole thriller
arrived for Christmas.

It’s not surprising that it’s a fair leap from Martin Beck and Wallander to Harry Hole. The Leopard is a great crime thriller, with a more modern amount of gory details, and a setting which covers Hong Kong, Africa and Norway. It means that there’s less of an overt Scandinavian outlook and approach to the world, and it’s fairly fast-paced with some good twists.

It’s also a good length at about 600+ pages, and yet I still ended up finishing it in just a couple of days – I couldn’t put it down until I reached the end…