TO THE BEST OF OUR KNOWLEDGE

Sunday    18 July 2010        1000 - 1359 (ET)

PROMO FOR Scandinavian Death Trip  7/18/2010 "Scandinavian Death
                                             Trip"
*Sales clerks at Powell's Books in Portland, Oregon, reportedly
call the best-selling  "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo", "the
girl who pays our paychecks".  The award-winning Swedish crime
thriller has sold so many copies, publishers are racing to find
the next Scandinavian best-seller.  In this hour of To the Best
of Our Knowledge as we meet the superstars of Scandinavian crime
fiction... and, talk with the director of "Valhalla Rising"-- the
"bone crushingly brutal" Viking epic that film critics love.

PROGRAM RUNDOWN:  "Scandinavian Death Trip"

0:00 - 23:59   SEGMENT 1: (24:00)
     Nordic Noir is taking America by storm, especially the three
     novels by Stieg Larsson that feature Lisbeth Salander. 
     She's so popular that writer Nora Ephron wrote a parody for
     the New Yorker called "The Girl Who Fixed the Umlaut," which
     is read by Jim Fleming.  Sadly the author of this hugely
     popular trilogy died of a heart attack at age 50, before the
     books were published.  New York Times writer Charles McGrath
     recently went to Stockholm to track down the back story of
     the books and the author.  He tells Anne Strainchamps what
     he found. Perhaps the other best known Scandinavian
     detective fiction is by Henning Mankell and features his
     detective Kurt Wallander.  In Germany the Wallander books
     have outsold Harry Potter.  Steve Paulson taks with Mankell
     about his creation.
               
     Segment One Outcue:  "...PRI - Public Radio International."

24:00 - 24:29  LOCAL OPTION with music bed (:29)

24:30 - 39:21  SEGMENT 2: (14:53)
     It's not all men who've made waves in Nordic Noir.  In Oslo
     Karin Fossum has earned the sobriquet "The Queen of
     Norwegian Crime" with a series of internationally best-
     selling stories of psychological suspense feature detective
     Konrad Sejer.  She reads a little from one of the novels and
     talks to Steve Paulson.  In Iceland the literary star is
     Arnaldur Indridason, reading from his novel "Jar City."  In
     fact recently 6 of the top 10 best-sellers in Iceland were
     his. He tells Jim Fleming about his gloomy Inspector
     Erlandur.
               
     Segment Two Outcue:  "...PRI - Public Radio International."

39:22 - 39:51  LOCAL OPTION with music bed (:29)

39:52 - 53:00  SEGMENT 3: 13:08)
     Nordic Noir crime novels are not alone in being dark and
     brooding.  Scandinavian films are equally so.  Danish
     director Nicolas Winding Refn's latest movie, set in the
     Middle Ages, isominous and violent.  It's called "Valhalla
     Rising" and tells the story of a mute slave warrior named
     One-Eye who joins a group of Christian Vikings on a sea
     voyage who end up in the New World.  Anne Strainchamps talks
     with Refn about his movie.
               
     Segment Three Outcue: PRI Audio Logo


For a copy of this hour, call 1-800-747-7444, and ask for program
number 7-18-A.

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