Scandinavian Crime Fiction That Excels In The Art of Being Moody and Riveting

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I work with a lot of Danes, and I find them quietly fascinating. They’re humble, economical with words and rarely interrupt in meetings. Even if they are the subject matter experts, they don’t find the excessive need to show off their merits like some of us Americans do.

There’s an air of restraint that makes you want to lean in to find out more about them. I’ve actually learnt to become comfortable with silence after observing them.

So when I signed up for a month’s Netflix, and it recommended me Secrets We Keep, I felt like I was already primed for a Scandinavian crime thriller. I almost binge watched it as much as I could during the span of a few days. And here’s my gentle attempt to persuade you to see this Nordic noir to appreciate how story telling can be done differently.

The show is set in an affluent Copenhagen suburb where one day a young Filipino au pair, Ruby Tan, who works for a wealthy family disappears mysteriously. The series has 6 episodes with each episode under 35 minutes. Its really economical on our time and attention span.

Ruby’s disappearance shakes up the neighborhood. Her neighbor, Cecilie, becomes suspicious and the story then follows her and other characters to unravel this mystery.

Like any crime thriller that’s aspiring to be memorable, the plot relies on characters constantly trying to stay one step ahead of each other.

If you want to intellectualize the critique, there are some places where some of the scenes are unexplained or the mood feels repetitive clearly following a playbook designed to heighten tension rather than resolve it.

The show is unsettling, and there are some great scenes, but some of the supporting characters disappear for a big part of some episodes, only to spring up suddenly with important developments.

One thing the show does relentlessly is to give mixed shades to each character that makes you wonder whether to root for them or hate them. One scene you feel sympathy for a person and in the next, some disgust. This moral ground that keeps shifting is disorienting for someone like me who’s grown up on Bollywood movies where there’s one clearly defined villain who’s the bad guy and at all costs must go to jail or die in the end.

From a craft perspective, the show makes excellent use of visual storytelling. And that’s why I appreciate what can be done on screen, that cannot be done easily with the written word. The camera lingers on faces, reflections in glass, muted color palettes. We’re invited to infer moral and emotional weight without being told what to feel.

The show also leans into some cliches, that affluent parents are emotionally absent for their children or that bored teenagers will drift into criminal mischief. Legal consequences can be avoided and no accountability needs to be taken if you have the right resources.

There’s one of my favorite scenes in a church that shows in a compelling way how some communities stay organized especially if they’re marginalized while most the western world that lives in privilege is often individualistic and socially isolated.

It’s a social critique parading as a thriller, because what better way to get our attention than through this engaging medium of storytelling? But whether you like the premise or not, it’s an important story to understand.

The series explores class divisions, racial and social inequality, the exploitation of foreign domestic workers, and the quiet power dynamics that govern rich people and their suburban lives. It asks uncomfortable questions about who is protected, who is expendable, and who gets to disappear without consequence.

It shows the ugly and disturbing attitudes of the ones with polished public profiles.

In order to throw us off the track, a few predictable twists later, one of the main characters says something at the very end that can be left for interpretation. So, that’s how it all ends with no real closure, just like in life most times?

I guess the point was to leave us with unease. And force us to focus on the vulnerabilities of migrant workers abroad, the rich being able to avoid legal consequences and the web of lies that can stay hidden if no one’s looking for it.

Go, check it out and seek some Danes to hang out with.

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When Life Happens, You Write

When you’re a writer-at-large, you let life happen to you. That way, you let your eyes steal everything that you see, put a spin on it and spill onto paper / machine some “stream of consciousness” kinda cool stuff. And if I am a true writer-at-large, it’s only fair that I must observe, muse and write about it.