Arne Dahl: Misterioso

Scandanavian crime thrillers have been spreading across the world in recent years: the superb 'The Killing', the stylish (though silly) 'The Bridge', or the various reconditionings of 'Wallander', fundamentally a Swedish version of 'Inspector Morse'. This dramatisation of a set of stories by crime write Arne Dahl about a specialist crime unit are the latest to make it to the UK; but sadly, they demonstrate that not everything is brilliant just because it's from the north. Although realist in tone, the plots of each two part episode feel immensely contrived and over-complex, while the background soap-opera, the private lives of its immensely ordinary protagonists, is both dull and obvious. And the whole thing is so slow: each three hour slug crawls forward, yet the details of the story seem hard to remember, with endless similar scenes and more blood than tension. Understated is one thing; but this is neither truly believable, nor (in any sense) fun.