Nordic noir: Branding Nordicness as British boreal nostalgia

This chapter explores how the reading and consumption of Nordic crime fiction in the 2010s, particularly in the UK, became enmeshed in a much wider and pervasive rhetoric of Nordicness made recognisable under the brand name of Nordic noir. I am going to argue that when Nordic crime fiction travels abroad, it is consumed as a globalised cultural good, desirable for its blend of transnational generic forms and its exotic local anchoring. A utopian Nordicness or borealism – a term to be discussed later in this chapter – may best describe the allure of what is associated with Nordic noir in its British reception. Here, all things Nordic have come to represent an imagined, desirable topography² bestowed with stereotypical Nordic traits, sampling everything from social values to well-designed consumer products, which can be accessed en bloc through the consumption of crime fiction