Solving problem-solving problems – on writing Viking Crime and getting yourself into a spot of bother.

©Photo by Gunnar Freyr Photography

When I started out I wrote a fantasy trilogy about large men with big beards and bigger axes finding inventive ways to hack, cleave and slash at each other with the odd enthusiastic string of curses thrown in, because sometimes one has to. And while that was great fun (The Valhalla Saga, available from retailers of various repute, features fantasy, mythology and crimes (against history, comedy, common sense and at times language)) it had one thing in common with all trilogies, bad and good - it ended. 

While not wholly unexpected, this left me somewhat stuck as to what on earth to do next. Like all writers I had a couple of ideas for things. Most of them were non-starters; a couple were half-starters, one was a limper and another an enthusiastic shuffler but none was a runner or even close to a finisher. I kept coming back to the fact that one of my minor characters from the second book in the trilogy had been such fun to write that she sort of elbowed herself into the third book and played a much larger part in it than I’d expected – and her name was Helga Finnsdottir.

And as characters sometimes do, Helga posed questions. Some were easy to answer; others were, if I am to be honest with you, quite inappropriate and definitely not fit for printing on the pages of a reputable website. The one I got stuck on, though, was a simple one: Where did she come from?

So I set to finding out – and I found myself writing a story about a murder set on a family farm in Norway in the year 965 and a young farm girl full of curiosity that would get her into quite a lot of trouble. And already, the astute reader will spot some things that I possibly maybe didn‘t think about so much before launching myself enthusiastically into this new project.

What exactly constitutes murder in the Viking Age? They were – rather famously – not against a spot of killing. They weren’t so keen on murdering your own family, and guests were supposed to be safe in your house – and then there is the whole matter of Viking Law, which is a subject matter for another chat.

But the main problem remains. Once there is a murder – how does one investigate? Physical evidence is at best rather limited, and forensic evidence is non-existent. 

There is of course an easy way to get around the evidence part. One could invent a Viking named, say, Skarlak Holmsson, who invents a method of burning ash in a very hot fire and dusting it over dagger hilts to note the finger marks left behind. Sadly, having decided to splash ‘Viking’ all over the books, doing that would probably mean I’d need to change my name, hand in my Icelandic passport and spend my days in hiding from irate Viking enthusiasts (of which there are a fair few, and they don’t give much ground to the Vikings themselves in fearsomeness). Also, as I am unaware of other Viking Murder Mysteries out there (but do feel free to correct me on this) there’s not really an established procedure to follow, so some of the joys of the more procedural route are a little bit lost.

My conclusion, once I had done a fair bit of wailing, head-scratching and a spot of gnashing of teeth was that if one wants to keep some measure of historical accuracy, writing a Viking Murder Mystery is actually a little bit tricky – but Helga did have a solution that fit in nicely with the answer to the question of how she became like she was when she first walked onto the page. 

And this is where we get to a point which I am more than happy to argue, possibly over a tankard of mead. 

Crime fiction depends on plausibility. A murder is a puzzle, and if there are pieces of the solution that are from another puzzle, or missing, or clearly cut to fit by your grandfather‘s knife (he was a man of great practical ability but never one of patience) it is markedly less satisfying. The world is full of people who can write annoyingly brilliant crime books that work, so the book has to work within the reality of the world. 

Further to that, historical fiction depends on historical veracity. The period has to feel authentic, and what is in the period must feel real to the characters because otherwise it doesn‘t feel real to the reader. And while the Vikings had little in the way of tech, they did have – and firmly believed in – Gods and magic. And because magic by its very nature solves things and Gods are sort of supposed to know everything, we have a little bit of a problem if we want a satisfying story about crime. However, Gods are also known for not doing what they are supposed to and magic can be quite tricky to wield. And there is also entirely the possibility that some of it might not be real. 

Some mysteries are better left for the reader to solve.

Kin by Snorri Kristjansson is published by Jo Fletcher Books in paperback on 7th March, £8.99