Arnaldur Indridason Wins RBA Literary Prize In Spain

Arnaldur Indridason was awarded the RBA Literary Prize in Spain for his latest novel, to be published on November 1, with simultaneous publication in Icelandic and Spanish. It will be a few years before Skuggasund appears in English. 183 manuscripts were submitted. The award will be presented by the President of Catalonia and the mayor of Barcelona.

HT: Crime Time

Yrsa Sigurdardottir's Iceland-My Soul to Take

I've always been interested in Iceland having landed there on one of those cheap flights to Europe decades ago. We had a problem with the plane (Iceland was a touchdown point -my final destination was Italy), and I got to spend several hours and do a very tiny bit of touring. It wasn't enough. What a stark but beautiful landscape.

Later I read the gripping thrillers of award winning author Arnaldur Indridason. His terse writing and ingenious plotting has made him one of my favorites. I was lucky to have Arnaldur on my Around the World panel at Bouchercon, the World Mystery Convention, this past year, and it was wonderful to see his personal humor during the panel. Inspector Erlendur, himself, is quite brooding.

I've also read Icelandic author Yrsa Sigurdardottir's novels. My Soul to Take is the latest in the Thora Gudmundsdottir series. This time Thora takes on a hotelier on the West Coast of Iceland as a client. Yrsa Sigurdardottir really conveys her country and its unique culture and stark landscape in her books. I haven't read this latest in the series, but I'm moving it to the top of my TBR.

I was so glad to get an email today from HarperCollins with a link to a terrific video in which Yrsa tours her native Iceland and introduces My Soul to Take. The scenery is breathtaking. Yrsa should market this to the Icelandic tourist bureau.

Yrsa wrote an article entitled " A Depressing Lack of Crime" for the Scandinavian issue of Mystery Readers Journal in 2007. The article isn't available on the web, but the issue is. If you're interested in Scandinavia, you'll want to get a copy. No pressure. The motto of Mystery Readers Journal is "enriching the lives of mystery readers."

Jar City on DVD

Thanks to Karen Meek of Euro Crime, I learned that Jar City, the film made from Arnaldur Indridason's fantastic crime novel, is now out on DVD. But can you find it? And will it play on your DVD player? Euro Crime mentions that it's out of stock at amazon.co.uk. I didn't find it in the U.S..

Interested in Scandinavian Crime Fiction? The Guardian had a great article last week. Scandinavian Crime is hot! Now that's an oxymoron at this time of the year. The article says that we should expect more authors to be translated in the near future. No big surprise to those of us who enjoy well written, well plotted crime novels.

For an excellent list of Scandinavian authors who have been translated into English, go here.

Bouchercon Panel

Just got my Bouchercon panel assignment, and it's terrific. Many of you know that I love mysteries set in other places. As Emily Dickinson wrote, "There is no frigate like a book/ To take us lands away." My panel aptly titled Been Around the World: Travel the globe with Janet and friends will do just that on Saturday October 11, 2008 at the World Mystery Convention in Baltimore, MD.

My panelists include Charles Benoit (India, Thailand, Egypt), Jason Goodwin (Turkey), Arnaldur Indridason (Iceland) and Michael Stanley (Africa). I can't think of a better group of mystery authors. Not only will we travel the globe together, but we'll also go back in history for some of the discussion.

So join me, as we travel the globe on October 11 in Baltimore. O.K. here's the bad news. This panel will start at 8:30 a.m., EDT. That's 5:30 am. PDT for me! If you're coming to Bouchercon, hope you'll join us. If not, I'm bound to write about it. Any questions you'd like me to ask this distinguished list of authors, let me know.