Leif Davidsen

Who were the heroes, and who the cowards during the Cold War which lasted from the end of World War II to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain in the early Nineties? This question forms the central thread running through most of Leif Davidsen’s political thrillers, the majority of which are set in Eastern Europe and more particularly in Russia where, from 1984 until 1988, Leif Davidsen was the Danish Broadcasting Corporation’s Soviet Union correspondent, reporting daily on the metal fatigue which was gradually eating away at the Iron Curtain.

Davidsen made his definitive breakthrough in 1988, with his second novel Den russiske sangerinde (The Russian Singer), the gripping tale of a Danish diplomat who becomes caught up in a web of murder and corruption, falling in love along the way with the book’s mysterious, eponymous heroine, a beautiful singer in a Moscow nightclub. Den russiske sangerinde won the Danish Academy for Crime Fiction’s award for best crime novel. In 1993 it was also turned into a film. Den russiske sangerinde was followed by the two other books in Davidsen’s trilogy on modern Russia: Den sidste spion (The Last Spy) (1991) and Den troskyldige russer (The Gullible Russian) (1993).

Leif Davidsen’s first novel, Uhellige alliancer (Unholy Alliances) (1984) was set in a very different part of the world, namely Spain. So, too, is Limes billede (Lime’s Picture) from 1998, although this last does involve a slight detour to Russia. Limes billede became an international bestseller and won Davidsen ’The Glass Key’, Scandinavia’s most prestigious award for crime writing. In De gode søstre (The Good Sisters) from 2001 the focus is once again on Danish partisanship and collusion during the Cold War and immediately afterwards. To date, Leif Davidsen has also written two thrillers about a Serbian hit-man with roots in Denmark: Den serbiske dansker (The Serbian Dane) (1999) and Fjenden i spejlet (The Enemy in the Mirror) (2004). Davidsen’s latest novel, Den ukendte hustru (The Unknown Wife) also takes place in Russia, a country which the writer clearly finds it hard to shake off, and which has, in most felicitous fashion, shaped his career as a writer.