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WORK TITLE: Victim without a Face
WORK NOTES: trans by Rachel Willson-Broyles
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE: 11/24/1966
WEBSITE:
CITY: Stockholm
STATE:
COUNTRY: Sweden
NATIONALITY:
http://www.salomonssonagency.se/stefan-ahnhem * https://www.facebook.com/pg/ahnhem.stefan/about/?ref=page_internal
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born November 24, 1966, in Stockholm, Sweden; married; children: four.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer, novelist, and screenwriter.
AWARDS:Crimetime Specsavers Award, Sweden, 2015, MIMI Award (Best Crime Fiction Novel), Germany, 2016, both for Victim without a Face.
WRITINGS
Screenwriter for television and films, including working on the adaptations of Henning Mankell’s “Kurt Wallander” series of novels for television.
SIDELIGHTS
Stefan Ahnhem is a Swedish screenwriter who writes both for television and for film. His debut novel, Victim without a Face: A Fabian Risk Novel, introduces readers to criminal investigator Fabian Risk, who is searching for a serial killer who is methodically killing Risk’s former classmates. Commenting on his entry in the field of novel writing, Ahnhem noted in an interview for the House of Anansi Web site that writing a novel was different from writing screenplays in several respects. Ahnhen pointed out that writing a novel is a solo endeavor, whereas writing screenplays typically includes inputs from numerous people involved in the making of the film or television series. “After writing screenplays for over twenty years I’ve learned what a good story is, and how to tell it in the most effective, interesting, and exciting way,” Ahnhem noted in the interview for the House of Anansi Web site.
Victim without a Face finds Fabian moving with his family from Stockholm to his hometown of Helsingborg on the Swedish coast. The move was made because of something that happened in Stockholm. Meanwhile, Fabian views the new locale as an opportunity for him and his wife to have more time to work on their troubled marriage and so that Fabian could spend more time with his children. Fabian is especially concerned about his relationship with his teenage son, Theodor. “The family want a fresh start, and to enjoy the beauty of the Skåne County, where Sonja can find inspiration for her paintings,” wrote Crime Review Web site contributor Ewa Sherman.
Although Fabian and his family have some time to spend together before he starts work at his new precinct, his vacation is cut short when Fabian is called in to start an investigation into the gruesome murder of one of Fabian’s former ninth-grade classmates. The murder was extremely grotesque, with both of the man’s hands cut off. At the crime scene is a class picture with the dead man’s face crossed off. Also in the picture are Fabian and his girlfriend at the time.
Fabian remembers the murdered man as being an extremely mean bully. Before long, other former classmates of the police detective are being murdered in inventive and horrendous ways. Fabian soon realizes that the manner in which people are murdered is most likely connected to how they acted in life. For example, the first victim liked to beat people up with his hands. The second murder is of a man who used steel-toed boots to kick people. Once again, the same photo is present at the crime scene, this time with two faces crossed out. Fabian then learns that one of his teachers, who had long retired, has died of a heart attack while holding another photo of the class. As a result, Fabian begins to wonder whether or not the teacher’s death was totally due to natural causes.
Fabian begins to suspect that the murderer may be a boy in the picture who was constantly harassed by bullies at his school. Furthermore, he believes the person doing the killing is seeking revenge not only on those who bullied him but also on those who failed to intervene, such as the dead teacher. Fabian starts looking for his former classmate who was bullied but can find no trace of him. Meanwhile the murders begin to pile up as one by one the twenty-plus children in the class picture are ingeniously murdered. Fabian soon realizes that he is up against a criminal mastermind who is able to commit murder without leaving a trace.
“The plot twists are stunning,” wrote Jane Murphy in a review for Booklist, adding: Victim without a Face “is very dark and guaranteed to elevate your heart rate.” Crime Review Web site contributor Ewa Sherman remarked: “Ahnhem’s experience as an established screenwriter shines throughout.” A Crimepieces Web site contributor praised the translation into English by Rachel Wilson-Broyles, noting that the novel “loses none of the Swedish-ness” via the translation.
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, August 1, 2016, Jane Murphy, review of Victim without a Face: A Fabian Risk Novel, p. 39.
Publishers Weekly, July 18, 2016, review of Victim without a Face, p. 186.
ONLINE
Crimepieces, https://crimepieces.com (September 21, 2016 ), review of Victim without a Face.
Crime Review, http://crimereview.co.uk (April 2, 2016), Ewa Sherman, review of Victim without A Face.
House of Anansi, http://site.houseofanansi.com/ (November 2, 2015), “A Q&A with Stefan Arnhem, Author of Victim without a Face.”
Salmonsson Agency Web site, http://www.salomonssonagency.se/ (April 19, 2017), author profile.
Stefan Ahnhem
Stefan Ahnhem (b. 1966) is one of the most successful new voices to appear on the Scandinavian crime fiction scene in recent years. A screenwriter with over two decades of experience, Ahnhem has since his debut in 2014 with Victim Without a Face built an authorship where the suspense and atmosphere of Nordic noir is combined with the cinematic qualities of screenwriting. To date three novels have been published in the internationally bestselling and award-winning Fabian Risk series.
“Blacker than Stieg Larsson and more bleakly human than Henning Mankell.”
-Tony Parsons
Awards
Shortlisted for Lubimyczytac’s Book of the Year Award (Best Crime, Mystery, Thriller Novel) Poland 2016
MIMI Award (Best Crime Fiction Novel) Germany 2016
Shortlisted for the Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book Awards (RTÉ RADIO 1’s The Ryan Tubridy Show Listeners’ Choice Award 2016) Ireland 2016
Crimetime Specsavers Award Sweden 2015
STEFAN AHNHEM is an established screenwriter for both TV and film, and has worked on a variety of projects, including adaptations of Henning Mankell’s Kurt Wallander series. He also serves on the board of the Swedish Writers Guild. Victim Without a Face is his first novel. It won Sweden’s Crimetime Specsavers Award and Germany’s MIMI for best crime fiction. He lives in Stockholm.
A Q&A with Stefan Ahnhem, author of Victim Without a Face
November 2, 2015
Victim Without a Face by Stefan Ahnhem
We recently talked to Stefan Ahnhem, an established screenwriter for both TV and film who has worked on a variety of projects — including adaptations of Henning Mankell’s Kurt Wallander series — about his transition from screenwriter to author. In Stefan’s first novel, Victim Without a Face, the body of Jörgen Pålsson, one of Criminal investigator Fabian Risk’s former classmates, has been found with both hands missing. Soon the bodies of more old classmates are found, and Risk finds himself in a race against time to find the murderer before the entire class is killed. Here’s what Stefan had to say about writing his first novel, the elements needed for a great crime fiction/mystery book, and the differences in writing for the screen versus writing a book.
1. You are an established screenwriter and have worked on variety of projects for film and TV, including adaptations of Henning Mankell’s Kurt Wallander series. What are the major differences between writing your own novels and writing screenplays and adaptions?
A novel is bigger and goes in so many different directions. When you write a screenplay, the director, actors, musicians, the photographer, and so on, all contribute to make a movie out of your script, but when you write a novel you have to do it all on your own. It’s your words and nothing else that meets the reader. When you’re working on a screenplay you’re the fly on the wall looking down on the characters, describing what they’re saying and what they’re doing. Writing a novel is completely different — you’re inside the head of one of the characters and see the scene through his or her eyes. You have to know what the character thinks and how they’ll react to everything that’s happening. Coming from the movie business, I believe I have the best of both worlds. After writing screenplays for over twenty years I’ve learned what a good story is, and how to tell it in the most effective, interesting, and exciting way. Even though my novels in the Risk series are quite long, they’re a fast read.
2. You’ve done so much writing over the past twenty years. Where did the inspiration for writing the Fabian Risk series come from?
In Scandinavia the movie business is really small and a couple of years ago I hit the ceiling of what I could do. It was almost impossible to develop my screenwriting so I had two choices — move to Hollywood or start writing novels. And because I have four kids — a big family — I really didn’t have a choice, which I’m really happy about now!
3. Victim Without a Face is the first in a series of three books: The Ninth Grave is a prequel to Victim Without a Face, and the third book picks up where the first book left off. What was your process like when writing Victim Without a Face? Did you have everything mapped out?
It almost evolved by itself. When I wrote Victim Without a Face small parts of the novel alluded to something that happened back in Stockholm. Fabian obviously has some skeletons in his closet, things that make you wonder about his past. Even I started to question what really happened in Stockholm six months prior, so I decided to find out by writing that story. The third novel will take place two years after Victim Without a Face. I don’t believe in serial killers that turn up once a year, just because I’m writing one book a year.
Victim Without a Face by Stefan Ahnhem
4. Considering all the writing experience you have, can we expect to see novels from you in the future in different genres (e.g. comedy) or formats (e.g. short-story), or are you going to continue to build a niche in thrillers?
I will continue to write Fabian Risk thrillers until I get tired of him. I have no idea when that will happen. Right now I love it more than ever. But I’m sure I will write in other genres as well. Science Fiction is definitely one of I’m interested in.
5. Your wife read Victim Without a Face during a night that you and her were staying over at your parents’ place — in separate beds — and got so scared that she didn’t want to sleep alone. Jumping off from that, what are the necessary elements for a truly great (and unique) thriller?
You could fill books with answers to that question, which many people out there are doing. The short answer is that I try to visualize myself reading the novel and getting scared. If I’m not able to do that, the book’s not working. I also try to take it one step further. I strongly believe in making the unbelievable believable instead of taking out everything that’s a bit over the top and larger than life.
After writing screenplays for over twenty years I’ve learned what a good story is, and how to tell it in the most effective, interesting, and exciting way.
6. Did you plan out the twists and turns of Victim Without a Face prior to writing the novel, or did they occur to you as you were writing?
No, I don’t plan all the twists and details before. They come when I write. Often I don’t how know it will end or what will happen in the following chapters. In Victim Without a Face it would have been impossible for me to decide the ending in advance. And if I couldn’t figure out the ending then the reader won’t either.
7. Which authors or books would you say have had the most influence on your own writing?
This might be a boring answer, but Henning Mankell is definitely one of them. And Stieg Larsson of course. I think my writing has much in common with both of them. Phillip K. Dick was truly amazing, and it was his writing that got me interested in storytelling at the first place. I also think Gillian Flynn is one of the most interesting writers out there right now.
8. What are you reading right now?
I’ve just finished You by Caroline Kepnes and absolutely loved it.
Victim Without a Face by Stefan AhnhemThe first book in the Fabian Risk series, Victim Without a Face is a chilling novel about the ultimate revenge.
Criminal investigator Fabian Risk has left Stockholm with his wife, Sonja, and their two children to start fresh in his hometown of Helsingborg. He has planned a six-week vacation before he starts a new job at the Homicide Department. But after only a few hours in their new home, he is asked to investigate a brutal murder. The body of Jörgen Pålsson, one of Risk’s former classmates, has been found with both hands missing. Soon the bodies of more old classmates are found, and Risk finds himself in a race against time: Can they find the murderer before the entire class is killed?
Victim without a Face
Jane Murphy
112.22 (Aug. 1, 2016): p39.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist_publications/booklist/booklist.cfm
Victim without a Face. By Stefan Ahnhem. Tr. by Rachel Willson-Broyles. Sept. 2016.608p. Minotaur/Thomas Dunne, $27.99 (97812501031851; e book, $14.99 (9781250103192).
Detective Fabian Risk has moved his family from Stockholm to his hometown in an attempt to hold his marriage together and have more time to spend with his children. But he has not even finished unpacking when he is called in by his new precinct. A man who was in his ninth-grade class has been murdered, in a grotesque manner. Other classmates turn up dead, and in each case their "punishment" seems to fit their "crime" against the prime suspect, who was himself a victim of extreme bullying. The killers brutal revenge rivals that of Stephen King's Carrie (1974). This book is hard to put down. The plot twists are stunning. It is very dark and guaranteed to elevate your heart rate, but the reader is sustained by the humanity that survives despite the relentless depravity. This first title in a planned trilogy was an award winner in Sweden. It's the perfect recommendation for fans who cannot get enough of those Scandinavian coppers, especially Henning Mankell's Kurt Wallander and Jo Nesbo's Harry Hole.--Jane Murphy
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Murphy, Jane. "Victim without a Face." Booklist, 1 Aug. 2016, p. 39. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA460761710&it=r&asid=a8163c23b03eb93297e4f49bea34a59d. Accessed 22 Mar. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A460761710
Victim Without a Face: A Fabian Risk Novel
263.29 (July 18, 2016): p186.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Victim Without a Face: A Fabian Risk Novel
Stefan Ahnhem, trans. from the Swedish by Rachel Willson-Broyles. Minotaur, $27.99 (608p) ISBN 978-1-250-10318-5
Swedish screenwriter Ahnhem's compelling if overly long first novel, a series launch introducing Det. Fabian Risk, explores social exclusion and its consequences. Risk has left Stockholm to return to his hometown of Helsingborg, but before he can unpack and settle his family, one of his high school classmates--a notorious bully--is found brutally murdered, both hands chopped off. When another classmate is killed (again, in hideous fashion), it's clear that everyone in Risk's class is a target--and Risk himself becomes a focal point for the killer. Risk is a fine detective with a strong dose of humility, but this killer is meticulous, leaving essentially no clues as the bodies pile up. Some scenes are grotesquely inventive (one victim is burned alive by a large magnifying lens), and the plot hangs together despite the many digressions. Patient readers with a taste for the gruesome will be glad they stayed the course of the book's 600-plus pages. (Sept.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Victim Without a Face: A Fabian Risk Novel." Publishers Weekly, 18 July 2016, p. 186. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA459287508&it=r&asid=c335f38b4ea4537937197438eb1b0e64. Accessed 22 Mar. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A459287508
Publisher Head of Zeus
Date Published 07 January 2016
ISBN-10 1784975486
ISBN-13 978-1784975487
Format hardcover
Pages 580
Price £ 16.99
Victim Without A Face
by Stefan Ahnhem
The instant Detective Fabian Risk leaves Stockholm and moves with his family to his hometown of Helsingborg, he becomes involved in a string of horrendous murders of his schoolfriends.
Review
The beginning of this brilliant debut brings positive comparisons with Camilla Läckberg’s style, whose crime series are set in the picturesque fishing village Fjällbacka, on the west coast of Sweden. Yet what could be described as cosy domesticity and violent murder quickly moves towards a grim killing spree even though family life appears to be in the centre of detective Fabian Risk’s world. His ominous surname indicates that nothing is as perfect as it seems.
Risk, his wife Sonja and two children move back to his hometown of Helsingborg, on the Swedish west coast, leaving behind Stockholm, some unfinished police business and implied personal heartbreak. The family want a fresh start, and to enjoy the beauty of the Skåne County, where Sonja can find inspiration for her paintings. Risk, unable to talk to his teenage son Theodor, hopes this phase will pass. But instead of a fun holiday ahead of starting his new job, Risk is thrown into a horrendous murder investigation: one of his old schoolfriends is dead, his hands chopped off and missing.
The killer sends a strong message – the man was a bully who liked using his fists. Soon another horrific murder follows of a thug who kicked with his steel-toed boots. At the crime scene a class photo from 1982, with two faces crossed out, is the only clue. Then a retired teacher, averse to conflict and confrontation, dies of heart attack while holding a similar photo.
It dawns on Risk that all those people who didn’t stop abuse and looked away are also guilty of the bullying, and hence might become victims. Or suspects. Risk’s new boss Astrid Tuvesson is torn between involving him in the investigative team’s work and pushing him away (he’s on vacation after all).
As the investigation moves between Sweden and Denmark, the relationship between two police forces is explored where big brother asks and small brother doesn’t want to listen, at the senior level. Thankfully some detectives have more commonsense to work together, as the hideously inventive and meticulously arranged murders show that the killer will stop at nothing to avenge the past.
Occasional touches of humour lighten the otherwise sombre mood: the woman from a toll booth on the Øresund Bridge calls Fabian Risk ‘my little Wallander’, and I suppose this was Ahnhem’s nod to his work on the famous Wallander series. But the violence and humiliation was too much for me. After reading a page from a bullied boy’s diary I had to skip through other detailed descriptions, even though this was an important element in building the characters and a complex background to the story, explaining how the horrendous abuse shapes people.
The ending of Victim Without a Face veers towards a mood similar to the TV series The Bridge, the genius example of Nordic Noir. Ahnhem’s experience as an established screenwriter shines throughout, and this book is already in production for a TV series. I hope the finished product is as gripping, surprising and tense as the novel.
Reviewed 02 April 2016 by Ewa Sherman
Review: Stefan Anhem – Victim Without a Face
September 21, 2016 / Sarah
This week I have a post from guest reviewer Tom Priestly who has been a long time reader of Crimepieces. Tom is a big Nordic Noir fan and has sent a very useful list of his favourite Scandi crime writers in order of preference. I’ll be reading the latest book by Stefan Ahnem as part of my Petrona judging but Tom has beaten me to it and has kindly agreed to review it here on Crimepieces.
saStefan Ahnem’s Victim Without a Face is his first novel, but his previous writing experience (e.g., some of the Wallander TV scripts) has borne fruit: it is well-plotted and grabbed my attention from very early on. It has what may be called rave blurbs on the cover by the outstanding writers Michael Hjorth and Hans Rosenfeldt (the Sebastian Bergman series) and Ake Edwardson (the Erik Winter series); so, although almost every new mystery book has seemingly pretentious blurbs, the reader may have high expectations from this one. All such expectations were in my case fulfilled: I consider this an outstanding mystery — but I have serious reservations too.
Investigator Fabian Risk has been re-assigned from Stockholm after some dubious event there, and travels down with his children and wife to Helsingborg, his home town, to start afresh and also to try to bring his family life into order. Nothing at all new yet, plot-wise. Still officially on leave, he is called in to assist with a case of a very brutal murder of one of his former classmates, with a telling memento left at the scene: a class photo with the victim’s face crossed out. Soon a second equally brutal one — of a second classmate — is called in, and the photo is there again, with the second face covered in a large black X. Among the twenty-plus children on the photo is Risk; his girl-friend of the time; and the boy whom the two current victims used to bully mercilessly. It looks as if the murderer is obvious, but only if he can be traced: he seems to have vanished from Sweden without leaving the country.
Two hundred pages down, another four hundred to go! Fortunately, the pace heats up. We often read the killer’s thoughts; the scene shifts over the water to Denmark and back; dead bodies begin to accumulate in numbing quantities, each killed in an ingenious and hideous manner; and the plot takes many unexpected but ultimately logical twists. As long as one can stand many very unpleasant forensic details, this may indeed be regarded as ‘brilliant’ and ‘fabulous’ (to quote a third blurb from the cover.) Moreover, the location was new to me, and was made an interesting one. Why then do I have reservations?
First, the length: 588 pages. Edwardson’s blurb includes the sentence “I read it at one sitting”. If we take this literally, it is highly unlikely. If he managed one page a minute, he will have spent nearly three days-and-nights on this task, without sleep, without bathroom breaks, and having to be spoon-fed. I found it so good that I did read it more quickly than the average two mysteries, but it was still a huge effort, as well as being heavy and unwieldy. Yes, the chosen plot requires a lot of detail, and yes, it is not difficult to read, but still I think careful editing would have pared it down to below 500 pages (!) — even with what I think are necessary additions, as now explained.
Second, it stops too abruptly. I wanted to know what happened to Risk and his fractured family, how the rest of the detective team worked out the intricacies of the crimes, and the fate of the two Danish characters — the lazy and manipulative chief inspector and his rebellious (but crucial to the plot!) female subordinate. Frustratingly, none of this information is provided: the reader is left in mid-air.
Third, there are some very annoying “Dick Bartons”. This is my own name for “cliffhangers” in detective stories, when the reader is presented with a crucial point in the narrative and then has to wait for some (short or long) while for its resolution. I base the term on the radio show which I, and millions of other young Britons, listened to – every evening when possible! – between 1946 and 1951 (when I was 9 to 14 years old), see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Barton). In this series, Dick and his side-kicks Jock and/or Snowy would be at the mercy of a maniac with a large knife, or in a locked room slowly filling with water, or hanging five storeys up from a fraying rope, or in a some other equally perilous plight — at the end (as I now remember) of every single episode (or, as is written nowadays on Facebook: Every. Single. Episode.) I find that in a mystery story Dick Bartons are acceptable and enjoyable, but they must (a) not be too obvious, (b) not be too numerous, and especially (c) not have resolutions for which readers wait too long. There are not too many Dick Bartons in Ahnhem’s book, but they are obvious, and one — where a member of Fabian Risk’s family sees the murderer in a reflection in his bedroom on page 301 and we find out his fate on page 502 — is, in my view, more than just excessive: on top of the great length and the too-sudden ending, it is, for me, unacceptable. — Given the real qualities of the book, this is a great, great pity: were it not for these reservations, I would rate this among the dozen best Scandinavian mysteries that I have ever read. Readers without those reservations will enjoy it immensely and unreservedly (!).
Tom Priestly
This mammoth piece of translating was by Rachel Wilson-Broyles; it is in good contemporary English, but loses none of the Swedish-ness. (As a translator myself, I refrain from writing “well-translated”: only fluent readers of Swedish may judge this aspect.) And one other plus: there is no prominent “International Bestseller” blurb on the cover (these annoy me: if it is a bestseller from a Scandinavian country, it will be necessarily “international”).