When I first let Detective Inspector Kolbjørn ‘K2’ Kristiansen meet Patricia Louise I. E. Borchmann, the professor’s young daughter, in the novel The Human Flies in autumn 2010, I had an inkling that they would meet again during later murder investigations. But I had no clear plans for any other novels in the series, and certainly no hopes that the series would be extended by a further four books in the space of three years. But that is in fact what has happened, as I now send Chameleon People to print in June 2013. I look forward to hearing what the critics and readers have to say about it, but whatever it may be, I have been astounded by the interest that has been shown in my attempt to revive the historical and classic crime novel in Norwegian. A total of two hundred thousand copies have been printed of the first four books in the series, and as I write this Afterword, the first novels are being translated into English, Italian and Korean.
Inspired by this unexpected success, the ideas for new novels have so far come very fast and easily. In 2011 and 2012, when the latest book about K2 and Patricia went to print, I was already busy writing the next one. But that is not the case now in 2013. My aim has always been to write exciting crime novels that are not simply thrillers, and as part of this, there is a developing relationship between the two protagonists. This book ends with them solving another murder case, but also with some dramatic events in their personal lives. And it feels like both the protagonists and the author need a rest to think about the way forward.
I believe it is more than likely that I will write more books in the series, but think that it is highly unlikely there will be another book before 2015, at the earliest. The ideas that I have at the moment are still far too unformed to keep the standard that I want for the books in this series. It is now time to find out whether I am only able to write books for this series with plots from the 1960s and 1970s, or if, as a literary author, I can also work with other types of novel from other periods. For some time now, I have had ideas for three other novels, with very different protagonists and set in different times, which I hope to realize within the next couple of years. The first, which is called The House by the Sea, is set in contemporary Northern Norway, and is due to be published already in late autumn this year.
As Chameleon People may be the last book in the series for a while, it is all the more important to thank all my excellent advisors for their work.
My most important advisor in Cappelen Damm has once again been my ever constructive and dedicated editor, Anne Fløtaker, who has been of invaluable importance to my literary career. I also owe a huge thanks to my critical expert advisor, Nils Nordberg, and my loyal proofreader, Sverre Dalin. Both have been observant and alert to all kinds of historical factual errors.
Amongst my personal advisors, my greatest thanks for this book, and all the others in the series, go to my linguistically gifted and reflective young friend, Mina Finstad Berg. Despite working long days in her new post as general secretary of the Socialist Youth League of Norway, she has found time to give me extensive comments on both the idea and the finished manuscript. I also owe Mina enormous thanks for lending her highly personal traits to the fictional character, Miriam Filtvedt Bentsen, who became a challenging third character in books three, four and five of the series. It remains to be seen whether Miriam’s goodbye with K2 at the end of this novel will also be her final farewell in the series. I am so grateful to Mina for letting me use her fictional alter ego in any future novels as well, without demanding that Miriam must appear if she is to continue as my advisor.
I have also received valuable comments on the language and content from my good and ever helpful friends: Ingrid Baukhol, Marit Lang-Ree Finstad and Arne Tjølsen. And I must also thank the following people for longer and shorter comments on the manuscript: Roar Annerløv, Lene Di Dragland, Silje Flesvik, Anne Lise Fredlund, Kristine Amalie Myhre Gjesdal, Gro Helene Gulbrandsen, Else Marit Hatledal, Hanne Isaksen, Kristine Joramo, Eva Kosberg, Bjarte Leer-Salvesen, Torstein Lerhol, Espen Lie, Turid Lilleøren, Katrine Tjølsen and Magnhild K. B. Uglem.
Marit appears in my novel in a minor role as Miriam’s mother, and Anne Lise and Eva appear as Ane Line Fredriksen and Eveline Kolberg. On this and a few earlier occasions where I have used my living friends as models for fictional characters, I have been very careful to get permission from my friends first and to ensure that the fictional characters’ actions have no parallel to events in real life. My responsibility and challenge has been to imagine how my good friends would react if they were transported forty years back in time, to be then dropped into a fictional murder investigation at an important time in Norway’s history.
Nor have the dead people I have taken the liberty to use as models for characters in this novel ever found themselves – as far as I know – in any directly comparable situations. They appear here as figures and personalities typical of the time rather than as historical persons. For people who are familiar with Norwegian history, the prime minister in this novel will hopefully have recognizable traits similar to those of the man who was the prime minister of Norway in the spring of 1972. On the other hand, the head of the police security service in this novel has many more similarities with the man who resigned as Head of the Police Security Services in dramatic circumstances some years earlier, rather than the man who held the position in 1972.
And finally, as international politics, in particular, play a far more important role here than in any of the previous books in the series, it is important to underline that the events in this book are fictitious products of the author’s imagination. The Cold War and international politics in general had a far greater impact on Norway in the 1970s than previously. The most dramatic incident perhaps was when another country’s security service carried out an execution on a street in my home county of Oppland in 1973, the year that I was born. The action in this book takes place in Oslo in 1972 and is in no way linked to the historical event in Lillehammer in 1973. Nor does it build on authentic events or characters in the foreign embassy written about in this book. In the spring of 1972, oil extraction had just started in Norway and Statoil was in its infancy. However, Norway’s negotiations with the Soviet Union regarding the demarcation line in the Barents Sea did not start until later in the 1970s, and the parties never came as close to an agreement as they do in this novel.
Readers who wish to send comments to the author about this book, or any of the previous novels in the series, can send them to my email address: hansolahlum@gmail.com.
Hans Olav Lahlum
Gjøvik, 16 June 2013
Looking back on my afterword from 2013, I have to admit that my planning for the next years turned out to be very unreliable. True enough, I did publish The House By the Sea later in 2013, but that teen novel is still the only book I’ve completed that doesn’t feature K2 and Patricia (instead, it stars K2’s grandnephew and his girlfriend, trying to understand their relationship while solving a murder mystery in a small village on the coast of northern Norway in 2012). But I then completed a fifth novel about K2 and Patricia in 2014, a sixth in 2015 and a seventh in 2016.
English readers interested to follow K2 and Patricia beyond the end of this novel will get the chance to do so in 2017 and 2018, although in 2017 I will write a different novel from a different era and with very different main characters, and it will be in Norwegian. I am very happy and thankful that Mantle will publish three more novels in the series, and would like to thank everyone at Mantle for their help. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank my English-speaking readers in various countries for all the comments they have sent me.