Part of the charm of the Scandinavian thing is that it presents us with small societies a little like our own in scale - perhaps even a bit superior in their sense of decency and democracy - and then shows them, for all their European style, imbued with the capacity for evil that makes the world go around.
It's a pity because the idea of a mystery transpiring in the stripped-back glowing colours of Norwegian streetscapes and landscapes is an attractive one. It needs to be catchier - to sing a more idiomatic tune - if it is to conquer the corniness of its plot. It doesn't help that Headhunters is translated into a no-person's language that shows evidence of academic (rather than life) experience on the translator's part. The idea of this novel (given the buoyancy and sheer hopefulness the idea of Scandinavian entertainment encourages) got me going but the follow through was sadly disappointing. Adultery, double-dealing and murder all come to complicate his life in drawn out and awful ways. The Dutch ubermensch is playing a game of his own and our anti-hero is hoist with his own petard. The set-up is intriguing enough but, needless to say, things turn out not to be what they seem. Then he finds himself up against a Dutchman who doesn't seem to be after a job but whose talents, including knife skills, enthral our narrator. Our headhunter is engaged in dodgy but inventive art scams and he also thinks of himself as an expert judge of humankind.
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