What if the PI had left his flea-bitten agency
for a newsroom? Goodbye to the solitude, having to keep up appearances,
needing a secretary who, even if you like, you can't afford to pay
but who stays anyway... Welcome to newspaper editing, with its financial
constraints, its domineering editor, articles that must sell papers
and this desire to know, to understand, which makes you take on all
risks. The detective journalist type has been around since 1907 with
Gaston Leroux's highly famous Rouletabille. One hundred years on, there
is no denying that detective journalists have multiplied, across all
the continents. I have recently chanced upon them, in my reading, from
Colombia, Iceland and Sweden.
The
Colombian example is born from the pen of Santiago Gamboa, one of those
storytellers that only South American literature really knows how to
produce. Peder es cuestión de
método. Everything serves the agenda. The novel
gave rise to a film adaptation, faithful enough if I am to believe
the critics, but which sadly the French have not yet deigned to bring
to their screens. And yet, Victor Silanpa is a journalist at El Observador,
a daily Bogotá newspaper. One Sunday morning, captain Moya informs
him in person of the appearance of a corpse on the shores of Lake Sisga,
drowned and impaled - what could be more gruesomely gripping! Due to Bogotá's
rampant expansion, land around the Sisga lakefront represents a small
fortune to whoever manages to claim ownership, with supporting evidence.
And therein lies the problem: the assumed owner has disappeared, along
with his papers. Victor Silanpa cannot help but delve into the case, even
losing his girlfriend and seeing his apartment trashed by tactless thugs.
There are certainly a lot of people interested in this land: a town councillor,
a lawyer, a property developer... and himself, an obscure news-in-brief
journalist.
In Iceland, Arni Thorarinsson writes about three employees of the Journal
du soir who have been relocated to the north of the country to
set up a new regional office: an editor, Asbjörn, a journalist
with a propensity for drinking, Einar, and a photographer, Joa. In Reykjavik,
Einar and Asbjörn were office rivals. And here they are condemned
to work together in the north, to succeed together, in a regional branch
set up directly beneath Asbjörn's apartments. Chain-smoking Einar
goes through cigarette after cigarette and Asbjörn's wife cannot
stand smoking and the smell of tobacco! The new Reykjavik editor,
young, ambitious and trained in television and marketing, intends to
teach the old veterans how to do their own job - how to be journalists
- not hesitating to remind them that he is the boss. When a suspicious
accident and a murder occur, Einar is busy having trouble hitting the
streets of Akureyri, asking people what they think of the weather!
In
Sweden, the detective journalist is the heroine of a five-book series
that has enjoyed resounding worldwide success. Annika Bengtzon was created
by journalist Liza Marklund, a recurrent figure in Sweden's national
media. Through the course of the novels, we follow the heroine in her
fight to gain her place in the Presse du soir newsroom. Abused
by her fiancé, Annika is dismissed from her last position after
killing him in self-defence. She then has to prove herself so as not to
lose what she has fought so hard for. Later on, having become a features
editor, wife and mother, she endeavours to combine the demands of a family
life and this career that enthrals her so. Each investigation entails
a huge risk-taking, both physically and psychologically, for the heroine,
and if she pulls through each time, she never does so completely unharmed.
Liza Marklund's novels are widely translated in Europe.
The
Colombian example is born from the pen of Santiago Gamboa, one of those
storytellers that only South American literature really knows how to
produce. 
In Iceland, Arni Thorarinsson writes about three employees of the Journal
du soir who have been relocated to the north of the country to
set up a new regional office: an editor, Asbjörn, a journalist
with a propensity for drinking, Einar, and a photographer, Joa. In Reykjavik,
Einar and Asbjörn were office rivals. And here they are condemned
to work together in the north, to succeed together, in a regional branch
set up directly beneath Asbjörn's apartments. Chain-smoking Einar
goes through cigarette after cigarette and Asbjörn's wife cannot
stand smoking and the smell of tobacco! The new Reykjavik editor,
young, ambitious and trained in television and marketing, intends to
teach the old veterans how to do their own job - how to be journalists
- not hesitating to remind them that he is the boss. When a suspicious
accident and a murder occur, Einar is busy having trouble hitting the
streets of Akureyri, asking people what they think of the weather! 
In
Sweden, the detective journalist is the heroine of a five-book series
that has enjoyed resounding worldwide success. Annika Bengtzon was created
by journalist Liza Marklund, a recurrent figure in Sweden's national
media. Through the course of the novels, we follow the heroine in her
fight to gain her place in the Presse du soir newsroom. Abused
by her fiancé, Annika is dismissed from her last position after
killing him in self-defence. She then has to prove herself so as not to
lose what she has fought so hard for. Later on, having become a features
editor, wife and mother, she endeavours to combine the demands of a family
life and this career that enthrals her so. Each investigation entails
a huge risk-taking, both physically and psychologically, for the heroine,
and if she pulls through each time, she never does so completely unharmed.
Liza Marklund's novels are widely translated in Europe.