Caught In The Act
There is something endlessly comforting about the so-called Genre Fictions: the hard-boiled detective novel, the police procedural, the medical drama.
Caught In The Act: The Dr. Sgt. Detective Hans Jonsson Novels, Volume 1, by A.A.A. Signunigson, Midnight Thrillers, 212 pp, 200kr, December 2018
There is something endlessly comforting about the so-called Genre Fictions: the hard-boiled detective novel, the police procedural, the medical drama, the stirring romance in the grand tradition of Mills & Boon. While it might seem excessive for a novelist to try to fit all these genres into a single outing, that is exactly what Signunigson achieves in this magisterial series – and succeeds in the fusion at creating something entirely new but still wholly comforting, like the delightful curried bibimbap taco that has so recently taken the Oslo food scene similarly by storm.
Sure, there are stretches and challenges caused by the book (much like by the taco!) Yes, it is never satisfyingly answered how Jonsson holds down a full-time job as a doctor while also holding down a full-time job as a police sergeant and moonlighting as a private detective and amorous lover –– intermittent mentions of "insomnia" don't really amount to an adequate explanation. Yes there are questions to be raised about the ethicality of a doctor-policeman and the challenges that the latter might raise with regards to the former. And yes it is hard to understand why a misanthropic and misunderstood heir to Oslo's largest industrial fortune would decide to spend his days at the Oslo Cancer Hospital throwing around wise-cracks and solving crimes (though, as he cleverly remarks at the denouement of the novel, he is by that point "all out of wise-cracks").
And yet... unlike the eponymous murderer in Caught In The Act (the shady Oddvar Caughtintheaction), Signunigson gets away with it. With a hand as steady as Jonssen's on the scalpel and/or trigger, Signunigson weaves a tale of derring-do and –– just as importantly –– derring-don't. The writing snaps and crackles and thinks. Unlike his hero, Signunigson is not out of wise-cracks, and hopefully won't be for many years to come.
NOTE: This review is part of our new series, View From The East, giving Oslo-based writers a chance to publish in (one of) Sunnhordland's premier outlets for English-language criticism and commentary in the realms of poetry, fiction and Bømlo-interest writing.