Steen Langstrup's Blog, page 8

This is Denmark

Filed under: Metro

War is not about doing what’s right

Filed under: Uncategorized

The Informer, now also available as a paperback

[image error] As my first book in English the World War 2 thriller, The Informer, is available on paper via Amazon.

There is an informer inside the Sabotage Group BB. Death is waiting around every corner. It is time to ask yourself this one question: Who can be trusted?

German-occupied Copenhagen, fall 1944. It has been four and a half years since the Nazi tanks crossed the border. Last year, the Danish Government’s policy of cooperation with the Third Reich failed.

The Danish police force was rounded up a few months ago and deported to concentration camps in Germany; now criminals rule the city streets. There is shortage of almost everything and easy money to be made.

You can get it here:

Amazon.com

Filed under: The Informer

New FREE short story published

I’ve just published a new horror short story

And it’s FREE!

This very short horry story is published on the Booktrack website.

Booktracks are e-books with a soundtrack changing as you read the text.

The short story has previously been published in Danish as part of the collection of short stories ‘9 før døden’ and in Spanish as part of the collection of short stories ‘Nieve negra’.

“Very spooky and awesome use of sound effects and music. Nice job!”

Amy Pollok on the Booktrack website.

You can read it on  Booktrack — it’s FREE!

 

Filed under: Break-In

But he’s such an asshole

To me, the album Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness by The Smashing Pumpkins is one of the greatest pieces of art ever created. I say that because this album has touched my soul, it has spoken to my heart for twenty years, and it still does. It’s so strong, so honest, so precise; the lyrics speak of a pain, anger and love—things I know, It’s like the songs were written for me. The album is a journey through heart and soul, pleasure, hope, pain, loss, despair, realization, youth and maturity.

To get the full experience, you need to listen to the entire album with your eyes closed; from the first track to the 28th and last track. It’s perfect.

Art is an individual experience. What touches me might not touch you in the same way; but of course, when something does touch your soul in this manner, you’ll want to share it with other people. So It happens that I’ll tell whoever about this fantastic album.

And then something weird happens.

Not every time, and not everybody does this…still, it happens a lot, and for some reason, it’s almost guaranteed to happen if I’m talking to someone that considers themselves a musician.

They reply something like, “You do realize he’s such an asshole, right?”

“He” being Billy Corgan, the lead singer and the man behind most of the band’s music; and, in fact, the only constant member of The Smashing Pumpkins.

It’s not like they argue if it’s a great album, or that’s he’s got one hell of a talent. He’s an asshole, period. A stated fact that, for some reason, should have some influence on my love for the album Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness.

I don’t get this.

Why should I care if he’s an asshole or not? He’s a rock singer, a guitarist, a songwriter, an artist. It’s not like I will ever get to meet him, it’s not like he’s about to marry the daughter I don’t have. I’m not about to hire him for anything. Why should it matter to me what he’s like or not like? I love an old double cd that he recorded twenty years ago.

To me, the art, the music, the lyrics, the way it touched my soul, that’s what matters. Not the guy who made it. In fact, I care so little about him that all I know is his name, and of course that he used to have hair on his head, now he doesn’t. Why would I need to know anything else besides what is to be learned by listening to his songs?

Why would I care?

Because the world is filled with gossip? Make-believe stories about the rich and famous creating illusions of who they are and displacing focus from what should matter or what shouldn’t matter at all?

Correct me if I’m wrong, but none of these people—who feel the need to inform me that the man behind my favorite piece of art is such an asshole—have ever met the man. All they base their knowledge on is rumors, and the fact that the three other members of the original band left the band years ago. This might or might not suggest that he’s hard to get along with, it might suggest they got tired of touring all the time, or they just needed to do something else with their lives. Or he might be the kind of artist who fights for his art, not a popular figure in these damned commercial days but, actually someone I would respect…even if others did find him an asshole.

What also seems to slip their minds is the fact that Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness wasn’t the work of one person, it was a work of a band. The other members of the band, James Iha, D’arcy Wretzky, and Jimmy Chamberlin, all played a role in the creation of the album. Corgan may have been the main factor, but he didn’t do it alone.

Still, you do realize that Corgan’s an asshole?

And what if he is? I don’t care. I don’t have to live with him. I just love his work.

Filed under: Things I love

When crime was reborn

Something happened to crime-fiction in the 90s. Something that challenged not only the genre itself, but also the way stories were told. The core of storytelling was flipped around with a grim smile and, for a short period, mainstream dared to challenge the intellect and political correctness of the audience.

Movies like The Usual Suspects, Se7en, L.A. Confidential, Trainspotting, the German movie, Lola Rennt, along with the computer game Grand Theft Auto, and even the Danish movie, Pusher, the brilliant debut of director Nicolas Winding Refn, were all part of this new and mesmerizing trend; but of course one director stood above them all—Quentin Tarantino. Especially his first two movies: Reservoir Dogs and the masterpiece Pulp Fiction. Both made an impact on me back then that would change the way I wrote, not only inspiring me to jump from the horror genre (where I had managed to make a name for myself in Denmark and Norway) to try my luck writing novels in this new crime sub-genre, but they also made me rethink everything about telling stories.

The ongoing dialogue of Tarantino’s characters added a sharp sense to the characters as they discussed anything from Madonna songs to hamburgers to potbellies, all the while, the grotesque, non-chronological storyline unfolded,. They were of course, for the most part, criminal psychopaths going on with their everyday life as criminals when all hell broke loose. Still, their constant chatter of anything but the storyline made it all seem more real. It’s like John Lennon’s words, “Life’s what happens when we’re busy doing something else,” made into art.

It wasn’t just cool or funny, it was edgy, it was alive.

The characters in Pulp Fiction are strangely unique. Most of them being some sort of psychopath, living in a subculture where crime and murder are everyday business; they go to the extreme in lack of guilt or conscience. Still, they appear emotional, understandable, or even vulnerable in some sense. The acting is no less than phenomenal.

Yet, what really blew me away, was the non-chronological storyline. The way the timeline of the story was mixed up, jumping from act to act as we follow different stories that all come together in a blur, trusting the audience to have the brains to figure out the right connection between the different chapters of the story. It was like storytelling was reborn.

To me, Pulp Fiction stands as the most remarkable movie of the 90s. Hell, you couldn’t find a party in Copenhagen in the late 90s where the soundtrack wasn’t played. Pulp Fiction was everywhere.

At the same time, many other writers and directors were challenging the way crime stories were told. Pulp Fiction may have been the best, but Tarantino was far from the only one doing this. Something was happening, and I wanted to be a part of it. The crime genre was reborn right in front of us all. It was alive and it was kicking.

I paid my ticket, sat in the dark, and watched as Vincent Vega took care of Mia Wallace and Jules Winnfield found God.. I had my eyes glued to the screen trying to figure out who Keyser Soze really was in The Usual Suspects, and was stunned by the ending. I watched as the serial killer  John Doe stepped right out of the seemingly auto-piloted plot in Se7en, giving himself up to the police and turning everything upside-down. I saw Pusher five times in the cinema that summer when everybody in Copenhagen was running around saying, “How many problems, you have, Franke?”

Crime was alive.

The crime stories I wrote in the years that followed were all inspired by this wave of challenging, black humored and often explicit crime movies.

I feel a stronger connection to these movies than to the later wave of Scandinavian Mysteries.

My newest book in English is called Russian Dope.

Filed under: Russian Dope

NEW BOOK OUT NOW!!!

NEW Crime Noir novel by Steen Langstrup

Warning, this book contains explicit violence and language, black and gross humor, and too many Russians.

A blur of non-chronological chapters, this dark gangster tale is set in fairytale Copenhagen, Denmark as the first snow of the winter covers the city streets. It’s the late 90s and the Russian mafia is taking over the streets, dealing first class Russian dope. A couple of stupid, Danish, lowlife junkies decide to steal some of that dope. Not really a smart move; but hey, man, it might work, you know.

 

Praise for RUSSIAN DOPE:

“A sound breakthrough as a crime writer.”

Danish newspaper Politken.

“Not for the faint of heart.”

Danish newspaper Jyllands Posten.

“Black humor and a keen sense for languages ​​and environments.”

Danish newspaper Berlingske.

GET RUSSIAN DOPE

AMAZON.COM  – AMAZON.CO.UK  – SMASHWORDS

Filed under: Uncategorized

So, you want to be rich?

So, you want to be rich?

I guess we all do. Just the thought of all the things you could buy, the places you could go. Not to mention not having to care about paying your bills anymore. Or the way others would admire your luck, work, and thoughts. Being rich isn’t just about money, it’s about success, it’s about freedom, it’s about respect, it’s about feeling safe.

You want that right?

The dream of the good life. Most of us share that dream.

ABBA even made a song about it.

So, what’s wrong with that?

Nothing really. Only, it’s a dream. Let’s just for a moment stop dreaming about how it could be to be very rich and try to think about how it would be instead. Sometimes dreams don’t mix that well with reality. You know the feeling?

So, humor me for a second and think along with me. Let’s say you won the lottery big time, or your grandmother’s uncle’s wife’s mother died, leaving you to inherit more money than you could ever spend, or you got very rich in some other unlikely way. I, for one, seem to dream about selling ten million books, but really, how you get the money isn’t that important. You get the point, right? A ton of money comes your way.

Your life would never be the same.

You know the dream. A part of you may already be wandering off, trying to decide what Ferrari to choose, or what castle to buy, or when to visit the Maldives. Stop that, you can have your Ferrari and your castle and as many trips to the Maldives as you want. You can even have five Ferraris or ten. It doesn’t really matter.

Your friends might love your new wealth, at least in the beginning. You know, while it’s still fun and you throw some big parties and maybe buy your friends some of the things they have been dreaming about. But then what?

Something has changed. You are not equal anymore. Your old friends can’t keep up with you. When you spend your vacation in Monaco or on some private Caribbean island, they still go low budget to Greece, and suddenly they don’t really feel that great about you and your luxury five star hotels. It’s not that they’re jealous people; it’s just hard to feel good about buying a used, but economic Hyundai when you show up in that flashy new Lamborghini, telling them you got tired of the Ferrari. Suddenly, you don’t see your old friends as often as you used to. You might even start to feel like they only invite you over to show off to their other friends, and that doesn’t feel that good as you might have dreamt it would. Because they all have that weird look in their eyes, like the moment you leave they’ll have something to talk about, and it might not be bad things they have to say about you. Still, you’re no longer part of the talking, you’re the subject of the talking.

And then, you start avoiding them. Just a little. Not in their face, get-out-of-my-life-ish, but you do have a lot of things to do elsewhere, spending all that cash. After some time, it’s like you only see your old friends when they need money, and then you realize things have changed for good.

Your family could be the same story, but most likely, you’d choose to take care of them. After all, they are your family. Buy them new houses, new cars, nice vacations. They don’t have to work anymore, you are rich now, you’ll take care of them. You love them. You might even choose to do the same to some of your friends. Maybe all your friends. No need to worry. There’s enough dough to go around. What’s all that money good for, if you don’t share it with the ones you love?

It’s going to feel great to do so. In the beginning. Then you start to feel lonely and burdened. It’s not that you are left alone. It’s just they all depend on you. You are paying for everything. They are depended upon you. They will listen to your worries, they will be there for you, and they will have fun spending your money. However, things have changed. Your relationships have changed. You are not just YOU anymore, you are The Provider, and slowly they start to behave a little like spoiled teenagers, acting like they have the rights to all kinds of luxury they never even knew before. And you have to pay. It’s lonely at the top, you know.

Then you start to worry. For what happens if you lose the money? If someday, it’s all gone? It’s easy to get used to spending more, it’s not that easy to get used to being broke again. Not for you, and not for all the people depending on you to provide their wealth. Will they turn against you, the moment the money’s gone? No, of course not, they say. Now. But then, we’ve all seen it happen, haven’t we? Divorces aren’t that rare among bankrupt people. You could end up poor and very alone.

So, you start to worry about money. Let’s face it. You can never be wealthy enough. It doesn’t matter how big a bank account you’ve got, how many private jets you own, how many original Picasso painting you get, it will never feel like enough. That’s the human spirit. Getting rich will never make you stop worrying about money.

In fact, rich people tend to care and worry more about money than poor people do. That’s why they always want to lower the taxes. The math’s are, the more money you get, the more you’ll worry about money. It’s never about having enough to pay your bills. The bills will grow fast enough, and you’ll need more money. Or at least, you’ll need to secure the money you have. Because, you can always lose it, maybe the next big crisis is just around the corner, and you, my friend, know very little about how to secure your wealth. You can pay someone to that for you, sure enough, and maybe they’ll make you even richer, but maybe they won’t, maybe they’ll blow it all, and you’ll be one going down, while they move on to secure the wealth of the next fool.

You will have to get used to thoughts like that. Before your new castle with private beach and tennis court is even fully decorated, you’ll take pills to be able to sleep.

You have to get used to that, because now you are living in a different neighborhood, and the people you meet are like that themselves. Reading those stupid magazines at the hairdresser didn’t give you an honest offer of what those famous and rich people are like. You could try to fit in, but you wouldn’t. You’re not like them. Sure, it would be fun to party with movie stars and rock stars and dine with oil sheikhs and bankers for a while, but for how long? What would you have to talk to about with that kind of people? Be honest now.

The thing is after a few years, a new Lamborghini doesn’t make you any happier than a new bicycle used to, it’s just harder to park downtown. Your king size bed in your emperor size castle doesn’t feel as good as the old bunk you used to sleep on when you were twenty years old and in love. The luxury of Dubai doesn’t bring the same excitement as the places you used to visit when you had to save money for years to go anywhere.

You start to get bored. Having too much time on your hands, and feeling lonely as well, you start to care about your health, your looks, your aging, in ways you never would have figured possible before. You’ll be using what used to be your annual income on doctors and plastic surgeries and still you can’t stop aging, you can’t stop yourself from dying or being bored or feeling lonely and used.

Still you smile, because you think you have to look like a winner to be one, and everyone around hates losers, who are too lazy to make their own money, even if most of them inherited their money in some way, you have to be like them to fit in. You can’t go around arguing all day. That won’t make you happy. It’ll just make you feel more alone.

Another thing about being rich you didn’t expect, was the way you suddenly find yourself feeling unsafe. Someone might try to kidnap your children, break into your house, or steal your car.

You are a lonely, worried, bored insomniac feeling so unsafe you’ll need bodyguards were ever you go. That’s it. Being rich proves to be a little different from what you’ll expect. You don’t feel like a true success, you don’t feel that free, you’re not respected—your money is, you don’t feel safe at all.

The only true comfort is that it’s still better than being poor.

So, you want to rich, right?

Filed under: Rich

The dirty scheme

Back when I was trying to figure out the plot of what would later become the second novel in the Sabotage Group BB series called ‘Codename Panzer’, the Director Ole Kröll paid me a visit, as he was directing a radio play based on one of my older novels and wanted to share some thoughts with me.

The walls of my study were covered with post-it notes in all colors—and I was at my wit’s end, missing the last few pieces of the plot for ‘Codename Panzer’. Normally, I keep those things to myself, I’m not the kind of writer who talks about my works in progress, but that day I did.

I told him about the major parts of the plot, a dirty scheme made by some high ranking Danes and the Nazis, but I lacked some parts of the setup to make the novel come full circle.

Being quite older than I am, Ole Kröll went silent for awhile. “You know,” he said in a serious voice, “some claim that happened for real.”

“You’re kidding me?” I said. “I made this up. It’s fiction.”

He then gave me the titles of some old books concerning Escape Route North and the meeting at Hotel d’Angleterre. Whereas the Nazi Escape Routes are historical facts, the meeting held at the Hotel d’Angleterre is considered a myth or a conspiracy theory. However, the myth did come very close to what I was plotting for my novel, and reading the books did deliver the missing parts for my story.

The myth tells how members of the Danish Resistance met with German leaders near the end of the war at Copenhagen’s finest hotel, the d’Angleterre, and agreed to join forces to fight the Communist part of the Resistance in case Denmark was liberated by Soviet forces.

Some still believe this myth to be true, others rejects it fiercely. Me, I don’t know. It does have a logical ring to it; but I guess, we’ll never know. Denmark was liberated by British forces.

What I do know is that the Danish politicians who had cooperated with the Germans appealed to young men to join the German army, and urged for the public to report on the Resistance, then returned to power after the war. They reintroduced the death penalty and adopted retroactive laws to punish the traitors serving the Germans. The smaller perpetrators got the worst punishment, the bigger got less, and some seemed too big for justice.

This made my story plausible.

Still, remember it’s fiction. There never was a sabotage group called BB among the Danish Resistance and there never was a Daisy Hotel, nor a secret branch of the Gestapo called IV2x. CEO Halle and most of the characters in the two books in the Sabotage Group BB series only exist inside these books. I’ve used the historical settings quite freely to support the tale I had to tell. The aim wasn’t historical correctness or romantic nostalgia. It was to tell a story about the darker sides of human nature, and those sides are often most clearly spotted in time of war.

Read more about ‘Codename Panzer’ Filed under:

NEW BOOK OUT NOW!

CODENAME PANZER

— the second book in the Sabotage Group BB-series out now!

When Sabotage Group BB hits the heart of a secret branch of the Gestapo working from a hotel in Copenhagen, they end up unleashing hell. A dirty scheme is in play. Now, they are hunted, and not only by the Nazis.

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