Crime novels by women authors are enjoying a success in Denmark at the moment. And female detectives are doing pretty well, too. But there are nevertheless still a few men in this branch. Let us take a closer look at three of the more interesting ones.

FLEMMING JARLSKOV’s series about the thickset, heavily drinking private detective Carl Kock is a distinctive Danish variation on the American novel about the hard-boiled detective. Like his literary predecessors, Kock wages a lone battle on behalf of justice and uses a language that is wonderfully rich in down-to-earth one-liners and bone-dry metaphors. However, Kock operates neither in New York nor Los Angeles, but in a rather more sleepy Copenhagen, and beneath the surface there is a far gentler and nicer personality than in his tough predecessors.

In Dommeren ('The Judge'), which is the fifth novel in the series about Carl Kock, a self-styled, merciless judge has systematically begun to liquidate scoundrels who have got off lightly after the most bestial crimes. But who is this death judge? The police actually think it is Kock himself who as a champion of justice has grown tired of the slow-moving justice system and taken matters into his own hands.
So to get himself off the hook, Kock is forced to solve the case on his own – a classic device that noticeably increases the tension. And Kock has to go through the wringer in order to clear his name and get his hands on the guilty party. Luckily, however, he is helped by a beautiful young female lawyer with soft lips and strong hips.

The hero of another Danish crime novel also attracts the attention of the police. In Chenleins dobbeltgænger (‘Chenlein’s Double’), by GEORG URSIN, which is the fourth book in the uncommonly curious series about the retired civil servant and spare time detective Victor Chenlein, the ageing principal character is arrested accused of setting fire to a block of flats because three witnesses believe they have seen him engaged on this dastardly act.
Chenlein is totally innocent, but is hauled before a court that appears to operate according to some indefinable principle of fortuitousness. However, as the title suggests, it is because Chenlein has a double that the witnesses have made such a dreadful mistake. This double turns out to be a pernicious criminal who is almost Chenlein’s double, and with whom Chenlein even shares DNA and fingerprints. So the question being asked between the lines is whether the kindly Chenlein and his double might be two sides of the same person. It is, however, a question that never receives an unambiguous answer.
The motif of the double is strongly reminiscent of works such as Dostoevsky’s 'The Double' and Robert Louis Stevenson’s 'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde'. And the novel is in general larded with literary references. For instance, it is clear that Chenlein’s fate has a great deal in common with that of K in Kafka’s 'The Trial', a figure who is also arrested without having committed any crime and is confronted with an absurd legal system.

While the police in both Flemming Jarlskov’s The Judge’ and Georg Ursin’s ‘Chenlein’s Double’ constitute the superior power against which the man on the ground must struggle, sympathy is distributed quite differently in OLE FRØSLEV’s series of detective novels entitled 'Darkness', which take place during the Nazi occupation of Denmark. Here, Detective Sergeant Poul Bjørner from Station 7 in Copenhagen is the absolute hero, while the Wehrmacht and the Danes who try to exploit the difficult situation in which the country is placed are the scoundrels.

In Profeten (‘The Prophet’), the fourth in this series of novels relating to the occupation, Frøslev has reached 1943. It is the year when the public mood in Denmark is intensified. But there are also Danes who know how to exploit the wartime atmosphere. A 61-year-old woman dies in her own flat in mysterious circumstances, and certain clues lead Bjørner in the direction of a man who has set himself up as a prophet and is demanding gifts of money from elderly ladies. The good deeds of the willing grandmothers, he says, can compensate for all the evil being committed at the present time and so ensure that world’s harmony can be preserved and its destruction avoided. This contemptible saviour, however, turns out to be quite difficult to track down, and Bjørner has to devote himself to various other interesting cases while waiting for the tiny detail that can put him back on the track of the prophet.
Meanwhile, it is the accurate picture of the age as much as the actual plot that is the strength of ‘The Prophet’. Frøslev gives a fine insight into everyday Danish life during the occupation, and at the same time he is able elegantly to integrate international events such as the fall of Mussolini in the summer of 1943.

Yes, indeed. The men are still capable. Carl Kock, Victor Chenlein and Poul Bjørner certainly all have to go through much suffering, but they will ultimately emerge from it all well enough to appear in the next volume.

EXTRACT - THE JUDGE

When I reached the Farø bridges, the sky sank heavily to the earth, and the rain transformed itself to drumming cascades against the windshield.  Violent wind gusts shook the panel truck and shrilled in the loose side windows.  I reduced my speed, leaned in over the wheel and stared out at the road, sailing before me.

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EXTRACT - CHENLEIN'S DOUBLE 

I’ve lived in a big city for most of my life. It’s not because I have any great need to be around other people.  Rather, it’s because I prefer a quiet life. Anybody who’s used to the city knows the peace you can find as swarms of people glide by you without even acknowledging your presence.

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EXTRACT - THE PROPHET

Detective Constable Bjørner was on his way home to the Station. It was Saturday the first of May. The Tivoli and Bakken amusement parks were opening, but even though the sun was doing its best, the wind was both cold and biting. For the fourth year running there was no workers’ demonstration in Fælledparken. It, too, would have been a mixed diversion.

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