En kriminalroman enligt författarskapets spelregler: Kerstin Ekmans Mordets praktik

This contribution deals with Kerstin Ekman’s Mordets praktik (The Practice of Murder, 2009), an adaptation of Hjalmar Söderberg’s novel Doktor Glas (1905). Ekman’s novel is about a fictional character, Dr Revinge, who moves in the circle of the writer Söderberg. Mordets praktik is a multifaceted novel with various genre features. It can be regarded as a logical continuation of a certain aspect typical of Ekman’s work: a subversive play with genre conventions. I will first discuss the genre of Mordets praktik and then view matters from another perspective and show that the novel can indeed be considered as building upon and a continuation of her previous work. Mordets praktik has much in common with her earlier work: intertextuality (with references to texts of others as well to her own work), metafiction and suspense. Mordets praktik can be regarded as a crime novel in the guise of a diary. I refer to inter alia the crime novels Ekman wrote around 1960, ‘The Women and the Town’ tetralogy (1974-1983) and Black Water (1993), the novel that was regarded as her return to crime fiction. Ekman seems to surprise her readers all the time, but Mordets praktik is a typical Ekman novel in which she stretches genre borders and challenges the reader’s expectations.