Kalmann by Joachim B. Schmidt

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We are delighted to announce that Kalmann by Joachim B. Schmidt is our May pick for our HIF Book Of The Month!

A touching and very funny Nordic crime thriller with a difference. No gratuitous violence, no revenge porn. A tightly plotted suspense story based on a neurodiverse character described with empathy, humour and psychological tact. In some ways, Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow meets The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.

Winner of the Crime Cologne Award 2021, and a bestseller in Switzerland and Germany, this isn’t a book to miss!

“Joachim B. Schmidt’s novels show a sensitivity to how the accumulation of seemingly small events
makes up the drama of human life.”
Sjón, Icelandic poet, novelist, and frequent lyricist from Bjӧrk

About the book:

Kalmann is the self-appointed Sheriff of Raufarhöfn. Day by day, he treks the wide plains which surround the almost deserted village, hunts Arctic foxes and lays bait in the sea — to catch the gigantic Greenland sharks he turns into the Icelandic fermented delicacy, hákarl. There is nothing anyone need worry about. Kalmann has everything under control.

Inside his head, however, the wheels sometimes spin backwards. One winter, after he discovers a pool of blood in the snow, the swiftly unfolding events threaten to overwhelm him. But he knows that his native wisdom and pure-hearted courage will see him through. There really is no need to worry. How can anything go wrong with Kalmann in charge? He knows everything a man needs to know about life – well almost.

About the author:

Joachim B. Schmidt, born in 1981, emigrated from Switzerland to Iceland in 2007. He is the author of several novels and short stories and is also a journalist and columnist. Joachim, who is Swiss and Icelandic, lives in Reykjavik with his wife and their two children.

Twitter: @JoachimB5chmidt | Instagram: Joachim B. Schmidt | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/InKustennahe

Jamie Lee Searle is a well-known translator from German and Portuguese into English. She has translated novels by Urs Faes, Anna Kim, Marc-Uwe Kling, Christoph Ribbat and many others. She lives in Winchester in the UK.

Twitter: @JamieLeeSearle | Instagram: JamieLeeSearle | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jamie.l.searle