English Translations of Scandinavian/Nordic Mysteries & Thrillers discussion

Edelweiss + has Johan Harstad's book Red Handler to be published on the 5th of December 2023. Norway.

A riotous metafictional dissection of a "famous" Norwegian detective writer



Frode Brandeggen (1970–2014), an unknown voice to most readers, made his debut in 1992with the experimental 2,000+ page novel Conglomerate Breath. It was never reviewed and soonforgotten. After that, he created a new genre, writing fifteen micro-novels about "Red Handler," aprotest-oriented crime fiction project aimed at confronting the genre’s weakness—and oftenunnecessary length.


As his weapon, he developed a private investigator who is already at thescene or in the immediate vicinity when foul play takes place, so that the perp can be caught redhanded and the case quickly solved, thus offering crime fiction to people who don’t have thetime to read long books, or who simply hate to read, but love crime.



This book brings together all fifteen micro-novels Brandeggen wrote about RedHandler for the first time, and is also equipped with a comprehensive amount of enthusiastic, explanatory,complementary, and sometimes strangely digressive endnotes, written in the pen of Brandeggen’sclosest literary confidant in the final years, German professional annotator Bruno Aigner (1934–).



This novel about the fiction Red Handler, Frode Brandeggen, and Bruno Aigner is Johan Harstad’s wildest, most hysterical project to date.