Road Rage Hits Spain, the Devil Deals in Sweden, and a Burglary Stumps Denmark
A minor fender bender on a Monday morning leads a frazzled female executive named Sonsoles to hop out of her convertible and let loose with a string of insults and profanities that would make even the most grizzled truck driver blush in Lorenzo Silva’s 14th novel, The Weakness of the Bolshevik, which has taken up residence on the paperback bestseller list in Spain. Though the narrator is mostly to blame, Sonsoles was most certainly not an innocent bystander and, angered by her outrageous reaction, the narrator reads through the insurance papers to obtain her phone number. He makes casual phone calls and begins to spy on her, cozying up to her 15-year-old sister Rosana in the process. Though he’s no Humbert Humbert, one of his most prized possessions is a portrait of Czar Nicholas II’s daughters. He is particularly smitten with Olga and wonders how the Bolshevik who ordered her death must have felt. Part “comedy, thriller, and melodrama,” Silva’s latest depicts the nymph-like Rosana in a way that makes “the most cynical reader weaken and lose his balance.” Recipient of the Nadal Prize for The Impatient Alchemist (the story of a middle-aged family man who dies in a motel room from a heart attack brought on by a cocktail of cocaine, bromazepam, alcohol, and sexual ecstasy) and, most recently, the Espasa Calpe Spring Prize, Silva has become one of Spain’s most translated writers. Rights to his books have been sold in Germany (Goldmann), France (J.C. Lattes and France Loisirs), Italy (Passigli), and Russia (Symposium). Contact Sophie Legrand at ACER (Spain).
Also in Spain, a remote villa in an unnamed capital city is home to brothers Ismaíl and Víktor Radjik and their father — an ex-Communist boss — in The Albanian Lover by Susana Fortes. Their silent existence is broken one day by the sound of a gunshot. Tension builds as Helen, a young and impressionable woman, arrives at the house, bringing with her a suitcase full of specters of the family’s past. A “blind storm of obsession” ensues, thanks to the stunning confessions of a Hungarian maid. She warns that secrets will ultimately be revealed, including those of a strangely seductive woman who provokes an illicit love affair in which passion becomes a weapon of choice in avenging the wrongs of the past. With a plot driven by intense emotions, Fortes sets out to prove that “no one is capable of renouncing love completely without destroying a small part of themselves.” Fortes has recently been living in the US, giving Spanish classes at the University of Louisiana and lecturing at San Francisco Interstate University. Rights to her latest have been sold to Muza (Poland), Neri Pozza (Italy), and Gyldendal (Norway). All other rights are available from Cristina Mora at Planeta (Spain).
Norwegian musician, songwriter, economist, and author Jo Nesbø is hitting all the right notes in Sweden with his spine-tingling crime novel, Without a Care. In the course of robbing an Oslo bank, a robber puts a gun to the head of a female clerk and gives the manager 25 seconds to open the cash dispenser. He takes 31, at which point the gunman holds six fingers up to the surveillance camera and pulls the trigger. Police Inspector Harry Hole, a regular in Nesbø’s novels, is assigned to the case. While dining with an old flame, Hole passes out and, when he comes to, learns that the killer has struck again. Convinced that he has no choice but to make a deal with the devil, Hole turns to Raskol, also a bank robber, who is currently serving a prison sentence. His newest book, The Devil’s Star — in which Hole is paired up with a colleague he suspects of murder and gang ties to investigate, ironically, the murder of a woman in Oslo — is sure to catapult him to international stardom. Harvill/Secker has bought two of his novels, including The Devil’s Star, and his books have been sold to Ullstein (Germany), Signature (Netherlands), Forum (Sweden), Modtryk (Denmark), and Gaïa (France). There is also interest brewing worldwide, from Brazil to Italy, Russia to Iceland. Contact Gina Winje at Aschehoug (Norway).
Sweden’s A-Team of crime inspectors, led by Paul Hjelm, is on the case again in Many Waters, Arne Dahl’s fifth novel in the series, which sprinted to the top of the Danish list last month. (Incidentally, his real name is Jan Arnald and he plans to publish his next five books under that name). Five Africans in Stockholm have just received deportation orders and are sitting in a kitchen in a suburban apartment built during the construction boom of the ’60s. Seconds later they vanish and, simultaneously, a burglar breaks into an apartment on the south side of town. The team is forced to confront a sour smell from the past in this “thriller of international proportions” that “cuts into universal problems with the sharpness of a knife.” Rights to Dahl’s oeuvre (also including The European Blues, in which a girl gets shot on her way home from a birthday party, and eight eastern European women disappear without a trace while a 90-year-old professor rides around the subway system, accompanied by Death) have been sold to Piper (Germany), Marsilio (Italy), Otava (Finland), Damm (Norway), Modtryk (Denmark), and De Geus (Holland). Contact Bengt Nordin.
Ten years ago, a few thousand copies of Three Feet Above Heaven, Federico Moccia’s novel of adolescent star-crossed lovers, were published by a small Italian house. The book emerged as a modern day Romeo and Juliet or Love Story through word of mouth, and photocopies of the book set off a flurry of curiosity in Italian schools and teenage hangouts. In this tale of teenage angst, 15-year-old Babi is a model student from an upstanding family in a posh Roman neighborhood who falls for the 18-year-old Step, a smart-alecky tough guy from the wrong side of the tracks. Babi’s parents are horrified by her transformation and by the secrets harbored by Step. Moccia enhances a classic story with “subtle shades” of Rome’s atmosphere. Feltrinelli has republished it to coincide with the recent release of a film adaptation, which is furthering the novel’s cult status among teens and “offering their shocked parents a series of snapshots of what their children do when the final [school] bell rings.” Interest is stirring throughout Europe, and rights are available from Francesca Dal Negro at Feltrinelli (Italy).
Italian rights for French book Afterwards… by Guillaume Musso have been sold to Sonzogno, not Rizzoli, as reported in April’s PT.
