have an answer to that. known really. and i'm unsure if your nationality is. is that important no longer i think that we more to do with the extent i think we share a cultural references cultural even cultural background because popular culture has become such an important part of our cultural background so you know i remember when i was travelling when i was around nineteen i would spend all my money going to asia and south america and i would meet people that it was actually a bit hard to communicate with. because we didn't shared through references i find nowadays it's meeting young people anywhere in the world we have read the same books listen to the same music scenes and movies yes but your books i think are also very in the region i mean there are lots of at least your graphical references

you write them about your own community and i think any great book is in some way a reflection all writers personalities his national and cultural experience why do you think your book says so you know first so. i actually think because i write it's local people are getting humor is about writers who doesn't necessarily come from their own country i trust my readers trust through imagination and intelligence so so i can just focus on writing about all slow about the people i know about the things that i'm interested in and just trust that they will read the subtext i mean if you if you if you drop in on any conversation you will you will quickly get what it's about you may even be the cutest bug want to talk involved so anyway that will feel. in the blank spaces.

cold distance now the sounds now i heard you say that the year how they're perfectly cloudless in their region child will arrive before your father revealed the biggest drama of his life his collaboration of we in the not since what was so shocking to you about. i think it was that it was the fact that i grew up hearing the stories from my mother's side of the family who was in the resistance movement and who were active my road his were active fighting the monsters and and so it was i grew up with this image of. the hero of the resistance and the evil of the german helmets when my father told me at the age of fifty you know that. it's time that you learn what i was doing during the war the first image that came to mind was this german helmets on the

head to my father it just it just didn't fit because my my father at the time and the woman being so was my hero and i think not only being my father but. as a person i was the as a character now that state of shock a state of colony to have just as that experience is very essential to all crime novels this is what the ultimate interior is turning their imaginary world upside down is that just laid surely trick for you or some sort of psychological revenge that you carry out throughout their lives what i learned just sort of the hard way was what we see in modern storytelling is. the hero being thrown into the villain and vice versa. it's the thin line between. you did an evil it's. looking at the character's

life and actions in a new light and try to handle the contradictions that is in everybody's lives that we you know one morning we wake up most of the time we we hope to be the heroes in our room movies but sometimes we we have a situation where if we have an almost look at ourselves and our actions we have to admit that we were doing and i think. trying to it's not except at least realized that that's movie or that's how we act as human beings. it makes the stories all of our lives slightly different and i think that's the kind of stories are right where the. protagonist of the story is. sometimes the hero and sometimes not and you are supposed to see the world through

these characters odds and accept that's how it is in you dealt with your father's difficult moral choice in your third novel the redbreast which dows into the history of no race collaboration of analysis did you feel any conflict of interest when writing it was there any pressure between you as a son and you as a writer. i think that it's. it's impossible to do to try to. remain objective as a writer. at least as a writer of fiction i i don't think that's the point i don't think there's any meaning in tries easy to stick just as a historical details you have to do that i am what i'm doing is i will pick five different individuals who have different reasons for joining them all says to try at least to give. multiple. views.

what was going on what the future looked like what the political situation was but also i have a diversity of very human motives selfish motives political motives. even idealistic motives which were. also part of why some there and some women joined the nonces and thinking they were fighting and fighting for their country and defending the borders when your father made that decision to join the german troops i think most of the stalin crimes and the abuses of the communist regime were not yet known the documents about the gulags and the purchase would come out here as later and similarly most of the crimes of the nats regime were not known at that time happy knowing all of that do you think you would have made the same choice. i don't think so he was when he told

to me. about his after the war he had to spend three years in jail before for having him full to the losses and he said i think that was a fair punishment for being as wrong as i was. he said i didn't necessarily make the wrong moral choice but i made the wrong choice. based on lack of information i did it i made it on the basis of what i thought was the future of of europe and my country was was the old democracy is being almost bankrupt united states being on the other side of the world and it looked like the future or was in the hands of either stalin or hitler due to strong men in europe at the dawn reading that book as a russian it was a very unusual experience for for me because we as a nation are far more in a vast that in seeing ourselves as a country that resisted. and i think for. the russians it's much more difficult to

separate the personal the law for our relatives from the historical reality of war since you think still attempted to do some of that do you have any advice for your russian fans to do i think you know for me it was quite it was easy to get some song i had to sit down and really talk to my father and those difficult questions my father was were open about it he said you know if you don't want to talk about it we don't need to talk about it ask me any question you like and just spending time with him and having him telling his own story not making excuses for. what they did made me in the you know any story can be told in the least two ways you know i was born in leningrad and i grew up hearing the stories of the heroism of the people and it was also around the teenage years when i first read about how widespread cannibalism was in the city and what's most shocking to me was

the people who sacrificed their lives for others and people who ate others to survive sometimes including their own children they leave on the same streets under the same circumstances. you dealt with people who crossed into the dark side so to say in most of your books do you understand what is it that ultimately separates the monsters from the heroes nor the i don't is. as a world of fiction we sometimes or of these i sometimes feel like the most. useless member of society because what i'm doing i'm just asking questions i can't give any answers. i don't do scientific work but i do think that fiction is. necessary for asking those questions how people choose

given moral dilemmas like my father did. during the second world war. those choices and how we make those choices or to me the most central theme of all my books are actually one of the characters in. prisons that choice between hitler and stalin as a choice between the sister nation germany and variance the russians and i think had geopolitical choice is back and it is even framed in the same way do you think their regions may be faced with the same. your father faced two years back. i think the choice will come back. you know time after time whenever there's a conflict of interest we sometimes come tuesday with moral choices. but the conflicts of interest will always be there of course what we're striving for is to is to make our interest internationally common that we share

interest but working to towards that goal is of course a long long way to go and along that way i'm sure there will be people over the world having to make that choice and choices but i think that's just ridiculous we have relevance in the regions because there are lots and lots of nato and russia accessorize this ride of the in the region coastline doesn't make you worried do you pay attention to that when i was in the army over the years. i spent a year on the on the russian border or close close to the russian border and it was always it was always the grio tension it was always the image of the russian enemy but it was very strange because this was in the north of norway and on personal level there was this kinship or or friendly attitude toward russians. because the russians had sort of saved the north of norway and the corporation to

win the resistance movement on the russians during world war two so it was. also the same. in the way that they were supposed to be the enemy but on the personal level you could feel that the people living there they were they were more were the . i would say the united states but some all the enemy invading them the russians and so necessary have to take a break now but we'll be back in just a few moments stay tuned. it as the protesters are grads are saying their purchasing power as diminished because all this money printing that's going on and you mention they can't tell a fact that money printing enrich as the people on average in paris and shows

little is a in paris and those people who are working doing blue collar jobs their personal power is eroded and so they the party of pamela anderson figured out that this is a structurally violent system that they need to address with the quid pro quo violence for violence. when a loved one is murder it's natural to seek the death penalty for the murder i would prefer need be to mean death penalty just because they think that's a fair thing the right thing research shows that for every nine executions one convict is found innocent the idea that we were executing innocent people is terrifying news just new really hasn't been that we're even many of victims' families want the death penalty to be abolished. the death penalty here is because . that's what murder victims' families want that's going to give them peace that's

going to give them justice and we come in and say. not quite you know we've been through this this isn't the way. welcome back to worlds apart from best selling that we can offer you know as about i heard you say that it's impossible to write anything without being political in some sense or another and. in another noble of yours they have a snowman you do we have the american president since you into the narrative do you think donald trump's name will ever appear in your books i'm not sure i think he's

too obvious in a way it's. better to refer to an american leader over a certain kind of think he will he will spring to mind so i don't think he sees name it's not even this is a real thing the way political candidates present themselves as also a way of telling a story more so about their societies down involve themselves and i think we can see in particular in western politics that voters who used to prefer sanitised picture perfect candidates increasingly all form. a character is of a certain kind more ragged characters as a storyteller how do you interpret that. i think it's people are getting in bits. with the the way the democracy is a work not necessarily democracies but the way the elite. this has gradually taken all politics it may not be the case in every country but i think they've met

the encounters like you know the states it's the reaction it's people really use in democracies in the way democracy is you could say it shouldn't be used but then again should be used to choose through candidates. i think you know where. it is still it is still the ideal of the politicians being close to the to the people so it's not that need to get rid of the elite and choose somebody from the people one of the reasons why harry hole your main protagonist is so appealing is because he has the vices and the vulnerabilities of a common man but he can also be the winner of the day from time to time i'm not comparing him to donald trump in any way but don't you think that they do have something in common at least in terms of this ruggedness that they. will definitely

. i think. the big difference is of course. some of the people in power in the world today seem to really. admire themselves in the case is the opposite he despises himself and he is leaning his services. to the public. in a way that it's his judy but he has no woman visions so i think in some ways similar in most ways is. that your work has been criticized by sound for its fascination of in the traditional some within say pain charcoal masculinity harry hole is ultimately an old natural manholes lays dragons and saves maidens. since norway is a global advocate of. equality have you ever felt the pressure of putting hair

whole in the position of pushing a stroller or giving him the female boss. no no not really i mean in the story is buyouts and in the big jewel is in the digital story and in my case or in his case this is the individual. i would never. you know even nurture the idea of writing stories that would have a function in society in informing people's political attitudes or. having my stories uniformly in ways we would fit into what's what is on the agenda of. today's media thing harry famine is with as appealing to their readers as harry the guy's guy. and there were really thought of harry being. popular character on the story writing about harry i

remember i mean after all the percent of readers or women so if you if you really want to have a big with a ship you should use or you should maybe have. those with theirs in the back you mind. that i can remember in my first novel i have are is sleep with a prostitute in sydney. and i was maybe thinking when i when i wrote that ok. just. needs for him to do that but. he will definitely not be popular with the with the women but he never know because i think there is actually a very interesting trend in western fiction the more people talk about women's empowerment the batterer. are the sales of the books that show man in dominant position fifty shades of grey is the vast example but i think your books also fit into that how do you explain that is there. disconnect between what people say publicly or politically or what they prefer privately well i do think that as long

as the stories are honest if as long as you represent the mom and the man's way of thinking and his behavior in a way that is believable and in the way that can be explained then i think it's it's interesting i think that over normals will function as a reaction to what is going on in society and we are always. most of those locally we are intellectually curious so we always look for the opposite point of view in in the snow man you deal specifically with the topic of infidelity and how differently it's perceived by men and women it wasn't just a convenient plot for you as a novelist or did you have some sort of a mad a mass as an author for all the straying women out there. no i i don't think so i can't really remember how are our came up with

a plot or actually the smallman stored with the title the snowman which i represented for a friend of mine and was making or making a movie as a potential title for the movie but he didn't use it so it stalled with me thinking about thinking about this. as not i can. but and then i read. for me sort of disturbing fact based on research was that. every fifty percent have a different problem from who you believe is your father this was a swedish review actually the number was twenty percent in a no i didn't believe in twenty percent so was it ok let's. wise it down to fifteen percent and which led to research has has confirmed and to me that. it was. i think it was more the motive or how you put important. knowing who you

fall is that it is something that we to some extent. tried to pretend is not important the longer that society has sort of taken on the role of the family and the family i'm blog is not that important but of course i think it's rooted that we in order to know who we are we need to know who our parents are which again. maybe points back to my own background but you also have in that specific you know you have several examples of fatherhood and sometimes people who are not the father is a more i kinder to the children and people who are biological fathers i can clearly see from your work that this topic of fatherhood is important you know what you have a whole series of children books why why is it so appealing to you as a writer. i don't know it was it was never like i said it's. thinking that ok i'm

going to write about father son relationships i can just see the is important for me because i'm writing about it and many more books i started out with a total different agenda and then i died is where i end up and you know it has even made me try to analyze my relationship to my father was it as good as i remember it . and i think it is but i still think maybe because i love my father so much there is still that longing for a father it's the of having you probably still not having followed the maybe because i've seen close friends of mine who didn't have a good relationship with a father and. for me that void. loss to me would be so big. it is something that i try to inspect in my stories i heard somebody say. that it's our parents risk your hands up. make us into the monsters

we are and it's the children give us a chance to straighten ourselves out and to become here is again to believe in that . no not really it's interesting i mean right now if you listen to. this in the behavioral lists. they are saying no. you come you know readymades you or. it's hugely exaggerated to what extent parents really can influence the children. even the screws that we go to are not important. we really can't be changed so if that's the case as parents you know we can we like you know it's there's not the most we can do now ear very versatile writer you're have crime novels you have children's literature you have tried your hand at shakespeare you wrote a very newsy t.v.

series do you still get a big kick in the excitement from the writing as you have been writing your first book you know i did maybe i mean when i wrote my first books i didn't have any idea so i just i really enjoyed reading your biography how possessed your world by the hero almost persist with the with the process of writing just putting words on the page and seeing that this is his job to desist slowly forming into into a novel so then installed with a process and then ideas came afterwards i still get a kick out of. our writing when it works it doesn't you know i don't like any other. normal person i don't do good work every day but those days were. good we're gone it's it's a great day and it's the same feeling and he said in one of the injuries that you were. trade all your writing success to be a professional football player which is very similar to how comedian

a french writer who got noble peace prize nobel prize for literature said he was also asked whether he would how he would choose between theater and football and he said that here which is football without any hesitation what is it about that game that is so appealing to writers i don't know i think i think stuart said the same thing about that and it wasn't even the football career which is playing one cup final at wembley i think it's of course is something that we grew up with. is the dream of you know making the perfect school in perth with gold it's it's the physical with something you can you you can touch i was just. i don't know for many years now rock climbing our story quite late in life and i did my first well it was a difficult route that i've been working on and when i came down i got a message for the first down my book was on the top of the u.k.

besa list and mark climbing partner asked me you know what makes you happy that you're on top there all i just did this route and i had to admit it was doing the route which was for me a personal challenge she was moved climbing history in in any way but it's just the fact that you have done the physical work you have done a good move yourself you could see it was so concrete being a bestseller it's it depends on so many things i mean there are so many novels being published every day that won't be noticed i guess it's just a feeling of scoring a goal on the board but is it is it is it's a very physical thing well we have to leave it there but thank you very much for being so generous with your time thank you encourage our viewers to keep this conversation going in our social media pages out of the sea org. same place same time here and also part of. all.

join me every thursday on the alex salmond show and i'll be speaking to guest of the world of politics sport this list i'm showbusiness i'll see that. politicians do something to. put themselves on the line to get accepted or rejected . so when you want to be president or injury. or somehow want to.

have to go right to be cross it's like that before three in the morning can't be good. i'm interested always in the waters about how. the city may. respond he will be missed out of need by josie what of. your mother. but i say all the powder but i again gouge and goes with dolly. yas the start of my do you. think i'm going to employ is going to go to the bridge. from which i got all the other thirty of us have the most almost the whole cd i mean look if you get the thump and you know has a funny but it was used i love melody. this

is going to. ignore. the mother of. this. story. the white house.