The last time I had a chance to talk to him Arne Dahl it was in 2017 when he was in Athens on the occasion of the release of his book Musical Chairs. He has since brokered the fight against the pandemic and has written two book series. crime thrillera tetralogy of an operative from the Europol covert unit based in The Hague with investigators of different nationalities, including the Greek police officer Angelos Sifakis, of which the Musical Chairs were a part, and five parts of the Berger and Bloom series.

The fifth and final part, titled “Three of Five”, has just been published by Metaichmio and was written entirely during the pandemic. “Personally, I’m half introvert and half extrovert, and those sentiments change quickly—of course, I think all writers tend to be introverts. But I lacked extraversion during the pandemic. I had a lot of time to write, but the work was not going very well, because of the lack of communication it was very difficult to write,” he admits. “My daily life hasn’t changed much, but during the pandemic, the rest of the world was able to see what it means to be a writer, to be in isolation and work alone. After all, everyone complained about the life that I already lived, ”he concludes with a smile.

He believes that the years of the pandemic, in addition to the psychological burden that they brought to many people of all ages, also affected crime. “I feel it maybe because everyone has become less social or more anti-social and it makes it difficult to have what society needs to function, empathize, feel, understand others, how they live, what they feel and how they are. behave. Without tolerance for others, the world becomes tougher, crueler,” he notes. The atmosphere of the last two years is consistent with the fact that it exuded a sense of dystopia that fills the pages of crime thrillers. “It was really like living in a dystopian world, we felt like we were part of a crime novel. Luckily, there is always light at the end of these stories, so thrillers are always upbeat for me. Yes, it’s dystopian, but it’s a condition for catharsis at the end,” he says.

New episode

Sam Berger and Molly Bloom have been good companions for him in recent years. The reason he decided to end the series is because he felt like nothing else was happening, that his characters’ lives were static. “I felt it was time to try something new,” he admits. The first book of the new detective series will be released in September in Sweden.

Although we write terrible things, we are good people – we have used crime fiction as psychotherapy.

We communicate all the time via video link, as I see him in my office, next to an impressive wall bookcase – he explains to me that this is his bookcase with crime literature, and on the three highest shelves he has his own books and their translations into different languages ​​- I think my impression of our first meeting was confirmed.

Very nice person, presentable, with a sense of humor. Why all this violence and darkness that he pours into the pages of his books? “I have many friends in this business who write criminal articles. The truth is that even though we write terrible things, we are generally good people.

Sometimes I think it’s because we used crime fiction as psychotherapy. It’s like getting rid of ghosts, the devil, it’s like exorcism. You worry a lot about what is happening in society and in the world, but when you get rid of these fears and worries and translate them into a controlled form, for example, into a novel, where you can direct them however you want, it is no longer like chaos. . you see when you look at the world around you. It’s more like putting them in a little box and throwing them away.”

Today Arne Dahl will speak with Petros Markaris and Vangelis Giannisis at 18:00 at the Seraphion of the Municipality of Athens as part of the 4th Police Literature Festival.