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(Non-Scandinavian) Crime

December 2012

A black and white photograph by Q Sakamaki of a policeman standing in front of a burning bus in...
Image: Q. Sakamaki, "A policeman stands in front of a bus set fire. . ." Rio, Brazil, May 24 2007.

We’re wrapping up the year with a look at crime, non-Scandinavian style. You’ll find no dragon tattoos or icy fjords here, only an abundance of lawlessness from the rest of the world. In two chilling monologues, Umar Timol’s murderer speaks to a dead audience, and Sergey Kuznetsov’s sociopath finds killing is always in season. Rubem Fonseca’s contract killer works both sides, Care Santos’s exasperated writer sends a pesky journalist to his final deadline, and Italian best seller Andrea Camilleri defines a Mafia vocabulary. Washington Cucurto returns to the scene of a Cortazar crime. China’s Sun Yisheng’s police extract an unexpected confession. French graphic superstar David B. and Herve Tanquerelle track a bank heist; Willy Uribe’s fugitive cuts to the chase; Morocco’s Mahi Binebine shows a suicide bomber’s first murder.  And Laurence Colchester and François von Hurter talk about publishing all crime, all the time. To skip this issue would be, well, criminal.

Partners in Crime: Bitter Lemon Press
By Laurence Colchester & François von Hurter
Astonishing as it may seem, we haven’t published any crime novels from Scandinavia.
The Killer’s Monologue
By Umar Timol
Do I feel remorse? Of course not.
Translated from French by David Ball & Nicole Ball
Multilingual
Belle
By Rubem Fonseca
I don’t enjoy popping anybody, but it’s my job.
Translated from Portuguese by Clifford E. Landers
Multilingual
False Faces: An Imagined Life of the Wig Gang
By David B. & Hervé Tanquerelle
“Remember that safe I carried off with Adjaj and Bernard and opened at my dad’s?”
Translated by Edward Gauvin
The Shades who Periscope Through Flowers to the Sky
By Sun Yisheng
“If you don’t go home, there’ll be bloodshed.”
Translated from Chinese by Nicky Harman
from “Butterfly Skin”
By Sergey Kuznetsov
It is good to kill in spring.
Translated from Russian by Andrew Bromfield
Confession
By Care Santos
Aficionados of morbid details, you will be asking yourselves what method I used.
Translated from Spanish by Megan Berkobien
Multilingual
Defiled Woman
By Washington Cucurto
My two homies from Africa spent the whole damn day lying in bed or drinking mate in the fountained patio of the house.
Translated from Spanish by Gabriel Saxton-Ruiz
from “Horses of God”
By Mahi Binebine
The spurting blood only excited him more.
Translated from French by Lulu Norman
from “Nanga”
By Willy Uribe
I was surprised when he was the first one who came and tried to blackmail me.
Translated from Spanish by Thomas Bunstead
from “You Don’t Know: A Mafia Dictionary”
By Andrea Camilleri
When it comes to adultery, however, sometimes you have to turn a blind eye.
Translated from Italian by Elizabeth Harris