Liza Marklund's Annika Bengtzon

Last week I got a Whatsapp. “Very important”, I hear you think, “I get a Whatsapp every day and you don't see me bragging about that, do you?”. You have a point there, but the sender of this particular message thought it important to inform me that this Annika Bengtzon was a nice fallow deer and that he would be happy to bark the Swedish equivalent of a roll of rusk with her. I had no idea who exactly that Annika was, but you will understand that my interest was immediately aroused. Annika Bengtzon turned out to be the main character in a book series by the Swedish writer Liza Marklund and, as is often the case with books, this series has also been made into a film. Nice for people like me, who mainly use books to level the dining room table. Annika covers crime for the newspaper. Kind of like John van den Heuvel, but tasty. She is quite passionate about that and they don't always like that at home. Per 'episode' (there are actually more films) she solves a murder and tries to make a point on the home front as well. Is Annika some kind of Birgitte Nyborg? No of course not! A Saga then? No one rocks leather pants as masterfully as Saga. And no, she's not nearly as screwed up as Sarah Lund. Nevertheless, if you are a sucker for the Nordic noir genre, you will have a great companion in Annika for an hour or nine during the cold autumn evenings.