N.Y. Times on post-Stieg Larsson writers..

How Stieg Larsson led the way to the bestseller lists for Swedish thrillers. 

  • Camilla Läckberg, a Swedish Noir writer who might be able to get her foot in the door of the U.S. market, thanks to Stieg Larsson's Millenium books.

  • N.Y. Times on post-Stieg Larsson writers..
    The New York Times has zeroed in on Swedish Noir, post-Stieg Larsson. Although Swedish crime writers have been known on the international market for quite some time, Swedish star writers in the genre, like Henning Mankell, have not been household names in the U.S. The blockbuster hit of Stieg Larsson’s Millenium Trilogy (the books have become a publishing phenomenon, selling 6 million copies in the U.S. and 35 million worldwide), might set the wheel in motion, because now everybody wants Nordic Noir.
    “The question is, after everybody reads ‘Hornet’s Nest,’ what are they going to do?” asks Stan Hynds, a book buyer at Northshire Bookstore in Manchester Center, Vermont, in the New York Times article. “I’ve got this funny feeling that every publisher is going to come out with the next Stieg Larsson.”
    If there’s a formula to the Swedish noir genre, muses Julie Bosman, who penned the New York Times article, it often includes a cold, stark setting and a grizzled detective figure who consumes too much coffee and junk food. The book covers tend to the bleak and icy with images of frozen lakes, barren forests and perhaps a foreboding bloodstain.

  • Already an established author with international fame, Swedish crime writer Henning Mankell may finally become a household name in the U.S., says the New York Times article, because of the publishing success of the Stieg Larsson books.

  • Bestseller formula
    Dave Callanan, a senior editor for books at amazon.com, points out that the protagonists in Swedish Noir are aggressive, but “more subdued than in American crime fiction. They’ve had their jobs tramped all over them. There’s a slight cynicism to them.”
    Henning Mankell, who has been publishing books in Sweden since the early 1970s, and who is an international star, is at last finding himself on The New York Times hardcover bestseller list for the very first time. And it’s not only Swedish writers——————―other Scandinavian authors are also being showcased alongside Stieg Larsson: Karin Fossum, Jo Nesbo, Yrsa Sigurdardottir.
    The fall catalog for Minotaur Books notes that Icelandic author Arnaldur Indridaon’s next novel, “Hypothermia,” will be marketed directly to fans of Stieg Larsson. And in September, Pantheon plans to publish “Between Summer’s Longing and Winter’s End” by Leif G. W. Persson, a Swedish author the New York Times calls “another potential follow-up to Mr. Larsson.” Says Sonny Mehta, chairman of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group in the article: “I think Larsson readers might turn to some of the other ones.” Another potentially interesting writer for the U.S. market is Camilla Läckberg, a best-selling author in Sweden, whose American editor Jessica Case at Pegasus Books explained that thanks to the successful publishing on Larsson’s “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” Läckberg was given a hefty advance―“one of the highest advances we’ve ever paid”―for her American debut “The Ice Princess.”

  • Sweden on the radar screen
    And even an established American author like James Patterson seems to get inspired by Swedish authors. Patterson chose Stockholm as a setting for “The Postcard Killers,” a book that is coming out in August, and which he co-wrote with yet another Swedish Noir star, Liza Marklund. Independent booksellers, giddy over the bump in sales, said many customers in their stores are just learning about the Millennium series for the first time. At Powell’s in Portland, Stieg Larsson’s books are selling so quickly―at least 1,500 a week―that the store’s grateful employees have given them a nickname. “We call them ‘The Girl Who’s Paying Our Salaries for the Next Few Months,’” said Gerry Donaghy, the new-book purchasing supervisor.
    To read the entire New York Times article: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/16/books/16noir.html?pagewanted=1&adxnnlx=1276848076-8VYc6kBC%20Kepoc3foofKig