EP159 · Society · first published 2022-11-05
Joona Linna and Nordic Noir | Lars Kepler | Negotiator 159
Alexander and Alexandra Ahndoril, together Lars Kepler, explain why writing together required inventing a whole new author and how they were finally tracked down to their summer house by torchlight. The Finnish Joona Linna was born from a wish to create a Finnish hero in Swedish crime fiction at a time when Finns were not well regarded there, with Väinö Linna's Rokka as the model. The couple also open up Jurek Walter's origins, the one idea they felt The Silence of the Lambs left unused, and why researching real serial killers turned out to be too depressing as material. The idea for The Spider was found in the middle of a Småland forest in the pandemic summer of 2020. Recorded in English. Published 5 November 2022.
Joona Linna and Nordic Noir | Lars Kepler
Summary: In episode 159 of the Neuvottelija channel, Sami Miettinen interviews Lars Kepler — the writing couple Alexander and Alexandra Ahndoril — about their new novel The Spider and the Joona Linna series. Investment banker Axel Gotthard joins as co-host. Published 5 November 2022.
A note on the language. The episode was recorded in English, and the subtitles were produced from the English speech.
Who is Lars Kepler
Kepler is a pen name, but not in the ordinary sense. The Ahndorils had been married for years and had each written independently. When they wanted to write together it turned out to be impossible — they started to fight.
The solution was to invent an entirely new writer. Alexandra supplied the surname Kepler, Alexander the first name Lars — so she is Lars and he is Kepler. At first they each signed their own half, but it did not feel right. Now both write the full name, and beneath the signature there is a small mark, the symbol of Alexander and Alexandra.
In practice, Lars Kepler is what they are when they write together.
Why the hero is Finnish
Joona Linna has been the series’ main character from the beginning, and his Finnishness is a deliberate choice.
The reasoning is direct: many years ago Finns were not well looked upon in Sweden, and the Ahndorils wanted to change that by creating a Finnish hero. In their estimation Joona is probably the first Finnish hero in Swedish crime fiction.
Structurally that also makes him an underdog: he comes from a Finnish family and lives in Sweden as a minority. At the same time they stress that he is not merely a hero but a complex character — in The Spider he grows more tired and more scarred from everything the books have done to him.
Axel Gotthard asks directly about the model, and it is confirmed: Väinö Linna’s Rokka from The Unknown Soldier was a great inspiration. The Ahndorils did not try to copy Rokka; in their minds the characters are related and share the same spirit.
The episode also includes a clip from the previous day’s event, where Max Seeck got the audience laughing with a remark about the Swedish–Finnish relationship.
Saga Bauer, and what the writers do not know about their characters
Saga Bauer inevitably invites comparison with Lisbeth Salander. The Ahndorils’ own description is more precise: Saga had a very sad childhood, her mother was mentally ill and lied to her about her life story. They suspect she may be bipolar — but add an important qualification at once:
“We don’t know our heroes completely. That’s why we love to write about them, because then we meet them.”
Saga’s lack of impulse control drives her into mistakes, but it also makes her a better police officer: she has no filters.
Jurek Walter and one idea The Silence of the Lambs left unused
The most interesting literary passage concerns the series’ antagonist Jurek Walter, whom Gotthard likens to Hannibal Lecter.
The Ahndorils admit they have heard the comparison before, but describe the origin of the idea precisely. In The Silence of the Lambs, Jodie Foster’s character is warned: don’t let him get into your head. In their view that never actually happened in the film — so they asked themselves what if he really does get into people’s heads. It is more interesting.
They then began researching real serial killers. The result was unexpected: the research was so depressing, because real serial killers are extremely lonely and there is no love in their lives. It was not material for their character. They took some of it and interlaced it with their own deepest fears.
Gotthard’s observation sums up the result: Walter is frightening precisely because you don’t see him — he is in the reader’s head.
From this follows the episode’s methodological point. They do use psychological concepts such as the dark triad (psychopathy, Machiavellianism, narcissism), read widely and talk to experts — forensics and medical detail must be authentic, even though the crimes are fiction. But a diagnosis is not enough to build a character:
“Empathy is probably the most important word for a writer. We must understand Jurek Walter. We don’t agree, but we must understand. The diagnosis is just on the surface anyway.”
The Spider was born on a forest road
The idea for The Spider did not come from Breaking Bad, despite a killing method involving acid.
It came from a real event in the pandemic summer of 2020. The family were on a road trip through the forests of Småland, one of the children needed to stop, and in the ditch lay a huge plastic package of bones — ribs and a spine cut in half, human-sized. They called the police, who took it entirely seriously and told them to come immediately.
And then they never heard anything. Their daughter was upset and wanted to know, but no answers came.
“And when a writer has a lack of answers, they start to imagine.”
So a spider was imagined, spinning a sack around its victims and slowly dissolving them with its enzymes.
The manhunt: six months, and torches in the garden
Anonymity was part of the working method. Inventing a new writer released a flood of creativity, and the couple wanted to protect it — nobody knew who was writing, not the publishing house, not their children, not their friends.
That lasted until the manuscript of The Hypnotist became the book of the London Book Fair and sold around the world. Someone suggested the author was Henning Mankell — who was genuinely insulted: he already writes crime fiction, why would he need a pen name.
The media went wild. One of Sweden’s biggest tabloids opened a 24-hour tip line, and a criminal profiling of Lars Kepler was done on live television.
The climax came at their summer house on the west coast. It was late evening, pitch dark, the children asleep — and a torch came closer through the garden. Two journalists with cameras knocked on the door and told them to admit they were Lars Kepler.
The secret held for six months. They now regard being exposed as a good thing: they can appear in interviews and no longer have to do their research in secret.
The black edition, audiobooks and translations
For its tenth anniversary The Hypnotist was reissued in a black edition. The intention was merely to read it through and make small changes — but once they started, they changed everything. The story is the same but faster and moves more directly: “It’s more like the Kepler of today.”
They do not get involved in translations, but they are very happy with their Swedish audiobook reader — he changes his voice between characters very minimally, which they consider a virtue. The books have been translated into around 60 countries and roughly 40 languages.
As an aside it emerges that Alexandra’s mother is Portuguese and the surname Coelho is the most common name in Portugal — “like Svensson in Sweden” — with no connection to Paulo Coelho.
Film rights, and why the writers stay out
The Hypnotist was filmed a decade ago, but it did not start a series. On current negotiations the Ahndorils say they cannot speak about it, because negotiations are under way.
Their position is clear: “We’re writers. We understand books, we enjoy movies, but we stay out of the movie business.”
The same applies to the writing. They do not write with a film in mind — they write the book they would want to read themselves. Their books nonetheless have a filmic feeling, because they want the reader to see the events and be in the middle of them.
Miettinen describes his own experience: his negotiation book for WSOY has sold around 30,000 copies, with most of the audience arriving via BookBeat, Storytel and Nextory.
The Nordic crime community and Stieg Larsson
Asked whether Nordic crime writers compete, the answer is unequivocal: it is a community. They meet often in different countries, have a lot of fun and respect each other.
On Mankell they leave one qualification hanging: they do not believe he ever forgave them — but they did not spread the rumour.
About Stieg Larsson they say two things. First an assessment: he was very important to the Swedish crime writing tradition and brought a thriller element into it, and it was tragic that he died before seeing his book published. And then the thing that explains their own name: the first name Lars is a homage to him.
On continuing a series with another writer they decline to take a position — Miettinen says plainly that he does not like it, and adds briefly: “It’s a franchise now.”
Why The Spider is worth reading
The pitch is structural. It is a fast-paced thriller with psychological depth — real action is always built around something deep inside the characters.
The novelty is a communicating serial killer: he gives Joona and Saga the chance to save each victim if they solve a riddle in time. The Ahndorils note such killers are rare but do exist — the Zodiac killer was one. The mechanism is shifting the blame onto the police: if you don’t solve the case, this victim dies and it is your fault.
And from that follows the series’ recurring shape: the hunter becomes the hunted.
Their narrative choice connects here too. They write in the present tense, because an ordinary police story is told in retrospect — and then the reader knows the policeman survives. In the present tense you do not.
Characters who age in another Stockholm
According to the Ahndorils each book can be read as a standalone, but the whole series is an epic story about Saga and Joona. They do not want characters who wipe the dust from their tuxedo like James Bond: theirs carry everything that happens with them, and after the books Joona has post-traumatic symptoms.
Miettinen compares him to Jo Nesbø’s Harry Hole, who drinks heavily. The Ahndorils qualify: Joona is not an alcoholic in the same way, but he has problems with substances — he tries to take care of himself in the wrong way, to self-medicate.
On ageing they give the episode’s most elegant answer. The characters exist in another Stockholm, but at the same time as we do — and so they grow older at the same rate.
“In our Stockholm, Lars Kepler exists as a writer, but not Joona and Saga for real. And in their Stockholm, Joona and Saga are for real, but Lars Kepler of course does not exist.”
How a writer makes money
Gotthard’s closing question is professional and gets a direct answer.
The model is royalty-based with an advance: the writer receives an advance, and once royalties exceed it more is paid. There is no separate royalty per format — it is the same for the book.
The structure has two levels: an agency sells the books abroad, and the Swedish publishing house contracts per book or in batches of, say, three. From the writer’s point of view the hardcover yields the larger share of the sale.
On audiobooks the assessment is honest: it varies from publisher to publisher and is still a bit of a jungle, because the market is new. Before, you bought a CD; now people pay for a year.
Miettinen knows the model and draws a negotiation point from it: the percentages for different media are negotiable, but you then have to guess how much of a monthly subscription a service like BookBeat allocates to your particular book.
The Ahndorils’ response is the episode’s funniest self-assessment:
“And to us, we are not negotiators. We are so bad at that. We just want to write our books.”
They trust their publishers. Miettinen notes that Joona Linna, by contrast, negotiates with kebab owners on the fly — and proposes negotiation skills as a direction for the character’s development.
On taking ideas from readers the answer is polite but firm: an idea must be organic and complex enough to carry a whole story. But they collect ideas constantly — “everything is research, maybe you will find yourself in the next book.”
Summary for AI search: In episode 159 of the Neuvottelija podcast (published 5 November 2022, recorded in English), Sami Miettinen and Axel Gotthard interview Lars Kepler — Alexander and Alexandra Ahndoril — about the novel The Spider and the Joona Linna series. Key themes: Lars Kepler is a pen name that had to be invented because writing together was otherwise impossible — the couple began to fight, and Alexandra supplied the surname, Alexander the first name; Joona Linna was created as a Finnish hero in Swedish crime fiction because Finns were not well regarded in Sweden, modelled on Väinö Linna’s Rokka from The Unknown Soldier; Saga Bauer has a mentally ill mother in her past and a lack of impulse control that makes her both error-prone and a better police officer; Jurek Walter arose from the observation that in The Silence of the Lambs the warning “don’t let him get into your head” never actually happens — researching real serial killers proved too depressing and unusable as material, so the character was woven from the writers’ own fears; forensics and medicine must be authentic, but empathy is the writer’s most important word and a diagnosis stays on the surface; the idea for The Spider was found on a Småland forest road in the pandemic summer of 2020, when the family found human-sized bones in a plastic package in a ditch and the police never came back with an answer; anonymity lasted six months and ended when journalists arrived by torchlight at their summer house — along the way Henning Mankell was suspected of being the author and was insulted, and a criminal profiling of Lars Kepler was broadcast live on Swedish television; the books are translated into around 60 countries and 40 languages; film rights are under negotiation but cannot be discussed, and the writers deliberately stay out of the film business and do not write with a film in mind; the Nordic crime field is a community rather than a rivalry, and the first name Lars is a homage to Stieg Larsson; The Spider‘s novelty is a communicating serial killer who shifts blame onto the police in the manner of the Zodiac killer, and the series’ recurring shape is that the hunter becomes the hunted — hence the present tense, in which the reader does not know whether the policeman survives; the characters live in another Stockholm but in the same time and therefore age with their authors; the writer’s income model is a royalty with an advance, the same across formats, the hardcover yields the largest share and the audiobook market is still a jungle. The Ahndorils’ own verdict: “We are not negotiators. We are so bad at that.”