Thursday 17 September 2020

Nordic Noir author Max Seeck on how a love of music inspires his crime fiction

The fact is: I’ve always loved music more than most people. Already as a kid, it was music that caught my attention in the movies more than the cinematography or acting. Nino Rota’s Godfather Waltz, Giorgio Moroder’s Tony’s Theme, John Williams’s Theme from Schindler’s List or Chi Mai by Ennio Morricone - just to name a few - made an instant impact on a young listener. 

Already as kids my friends and I were making gangster movies with my handheld video camera. They were okay enough to make us feel like real movie producers, but then an audio editing device (my parents bought me when I was 12ish?) brought our productions to a whole new level. This happened in 1997, so there still was a long road to walk before we’d be able to record and edit the videos in digital format, which we started doing almost 10 years later. Anyway, now it was suddenly possible to spice up the atmosphere with soundtracks without the music being painfully paused between takes. Suddenly we were one step (out of 10 000) closer to decent movie making. It was around those times I stated my ultimate goal in life: to win an Academy Award, for whatever category. 

When I reached the teenage years, my taste for music expanded enormously. Suddenly I wasn’t that into movie soundtracks anymore, but for groups and artists like Rage Against The Machine, AC/DC, Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park, Eminem, Dr. Dre, Xzibit but I also liked more calm and traditional favorites like Queen, The Beatles, Bon Jovi and many bands who sang their lyrics in Finnish. Back in the days I was used to sit next to a tape recorder, listen to radio and hit the record button anytime a good song would be on. That’s the way we collected hit mixes and listened them on our walkmans. Nobody ever managed to get the entire song on the cassette and there were always short bits of the radio station tunes or a word or two from the announcer. Good times though. 

Unfortunately we grew up and I didn’t continue to pursue my movie career for many many years. Once I started writing novels in 2013 I returned to listening to soundtracks and fell in love again. Listening to movie scores while writing has become a crucial part of my writing process. I have different playlists for different scenes - there are specific songs for scary, intense, action-packed, romantic, sad and funny scenes. It really helps me to orientate as a writer because (as an old movie freak) I can imagine how the scene would look and feel onscreen. And maybe because of this (or despite of it) many readers say my novels feel very cinematic. I’m always happy to hear that, because to be frank - that’s what I’ve always aimed and hoped for. 

And maybe that is also one of the reasons The Witch Hunter is being adapted by Stampede Ventures, a Hollywood based production company. At least I’d like to think that it’s not just coincidence, and that I’ve taken yet another small step towards my (once childish) dream of winning an Oscar. 

The Witch Hunter by Max Seeck is published 17 September by Welbeck (price £7.99 paperback original). 
When the story ends, the hunt begins... Detective Jessica Niemi is drawn into a high-profile investigation after the wife of a famous author, Roger Koponen, appears to have been killed in a bizarre ritual. As more twisted murders occur in the coming days, it becomes obvious that Jessica is hunting a serial killer - one that is taking brutal inspiration from Koponen's bestselling trilogy . . . Has a devoted fan lost their mind, or is this case more personal?

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