Who’s Who of Nordic Noir

Move over Krak Vejviser, this is the guidebook every visiting Brit wants this Christmas

For a tiny, wet, windy, rye bread-munching country, Denmark manages to shift a lot of exports – Carlsberg, bacon, wind turbines and hearing aids spring to mind, and don’t forget all the TV dramas it produces from a pool of barely 15 actors.

And now one self-confessed superfan of Nordic Noir is compiling a guide to ‘Forbrydelsen’ (‘The Killing’) for all those Brits gripped by the phenomenon.

The book has been written by Emma Kennedy, an English writer and actress whose last job was providing the voice to Elf in the award-shy animated film ‘Arthur Christmas’.

Kennedy spent time in Copenhagen watching the third series being shot and confessed to Sofie Gråbøl, who plays the lead Sarah Lund, that she wished her character was real. “She is, quite simply, one of the greatest female characters ever created,” Kennedy wrote in an article extolling Lund’s originality – or was it Gråbøl’s?

The book will include a foreword from Gråbøl, character profiles, plot summaries, language guides, walking tours of filming locations, and instructions for knitting a Lund-style jumper (surely worth the cover price alone).

‘The Killing Handbook’ will be released in mid-November to coincide with the release of the latest series, conveniently in time for Christmas.

The third season of Forbrydelsen debuts tonight on DR1