Martin Holmén (1974-) is a history teacher in Stockholm and according to his website has not yet chosen to become a full-time writer. Clinch (2015, English edition 2016) was his debut novel and the first part of the Harry Kvist trilogy (Down for the Count and Slugger followed in 2016 and 2017, translated into English 2017 and 2018). His website describes these novels as “gritty, historical, queer noir fiction with a unique Swedish flavour.” This description is accurate and yet does not really do justice to Holmén’s writing.
Stockholm of 1932 in Clinch is very noir. It is winter coming up to Christmas, there is very little light in the sky, and there seems to be very little lightness in the lives of the inhabitants of this almost dystopian city. The narrative in places is as much a tour guide to the mean streets of Stockholm as a crime story. It opens with a wet street smelling of horse manure and dimly lit with a neon sign (p12) Holmén specialises in street-scenes (see pp.84, 94-5, 125, 134, 137, 149, 160, 201, 203, 251, 265). Pedestrians, passing vehicles, street-loiterers and shop signs are depicted in meticulous detail. Holmén’s period detail is equally exquisite. Whether it is minor detail, such as “ski-wax tips” on the radio (p74) matters of personal hygiene (p72, 186), or the wider social context of unemployment and poverty (p116, 147) Holmén is pitch perfect. The time point of 1932 was clearly a carefully considered choice: “This was the year when there was something rotten in the nation.” (p287) Holmén appears genuinely enthusiastic about the world he has created. The wealth of his historical exposition is in places threatening the narrative tension and pace. Because the setting is interesting in its own right, lengthy descriptions of streets and their occupants narrowly avoid boring the reader. In his 1932 Stockholm where horse drawn vehicles share the streets with foreign sports cars, where Dickensian poverty jostles with jazz-age modernity and where fascism is lifting its ugly head, he brings to the reader just the right mixture of familiar and exotic to entertain the reader. This setting is essential because the characters’ behaviour and motivations are entirely from this world, this historical moment. Holmén maintains the illusion of 1932 throughout.
The main character Harry Kvist, a professional fixer and muscle-for-hire, with a past career as seaman and a professional boxer, is a strong protagonist and a classic noir character. He is suitably rough and sentimental. He can beat a man unconscious because of an arrogant sneer (p26), but cannot bring himself to question a grieving father (p118). He can sexually assault a poor young woman to get the information he wants (p96), but grows very fond of a small dog (p302). The character is believable; the reader sees Harry Kvist as a troubled man struggling to do the right thing in a crazy world. The modern twist in Holmén’s characterisation is the way he deals with Kvist’s sexuality – it would not have been possible in a published 1930s narrative. Holmén is very good with scenes of violence and sex. These scenes are strong and come across as natural part of the narrative flow. Kvist’s sexuality is an integral part of his character and as convincing as his violence and sentimentality.
The plot is a wonderfully traditional crime story in a noir tradition. Kvist is engaged to do a simple task of collecting a debt for unpaid instalments on a car from a man called Zetterberg. He roughs up Zetterberg suitably and tells him he will return for the money the following day. When he arrives back, he finds a crowd outside the apartment block and Zetterberg’s murdered body being carried out on a stretcher. Of course Kvist had been spotted the night before and becomes the prime suspect. He is picked up by the police but released for lack of evidence. Naturally, there is now a race for Kvist to clear his name before the police get fit the evidence to blame him for the murder. Kvist goes in search of a key witness, a prostitute called Sonja he met outside Zetterberg’s building on the fateful night, and he delves into the Stockholm booze-smuggling underworld to investigate Zetterberg’s finances. He also realises that someone is trying to kill him.
Throw in a homicidal, gaunt German with a long overcoat and a limp, a glamorous ex-film star with a drug habit, organized crime with an assortment of heavies, a timid hotel porter hopelessly in love with a prostitute, and a wealthy business man with a very nasty secret and you have a perfectly adequate plot.
Kvist comes home one day and finds a woman at his desk with her feet up, lighting a cigarette (p163), “giving off a strong scent of class, style and oodles of dough.” (p164). This is a very nice riff on the classic noir meme and the scene is written well. It also happens at the right moment in the narrative: Kvist has come to a dead end in his investigations and the story is reaching for a new direction. But this scene also opens up the one structural weakness in the narrative: it is almost derailed because Kvist’s criminal investigation falls by the wayside and the focus becomes Kvist’s relationship with the woman, Doris Steiner - and her pet dog Dixie. There is just enough in that relationship to keep the reader turning the pages. There is a delightfully cosy domestic scene where the couple sit in Kvist’s kitchen, he is cleaning his gun and she is shooting up heroin (p220). Steiner’s excuse of seeking out Kvist because of a problem with her housekeeper (p167) is quickly forgotten as their relationship gets going. It is obvious that Steiner had some other motive to seek out Kvist. In the end we get the answer; how all the events from the first page and Zetterberg’s murder to the affair with Doris Steiner come together. The denouement is an effective, melodramatic scene with classic noir qualities and nastiness. It works well within the period context.
Clinch is a clever crime story and Holmén has put a lot of effort into it. I applaud him for that. Henning Koch has also done an excellent job in the English translation with the added challenge of translating the period detail.
