Satellite People

Author’s Afterword

This novel, written thirty-five years after her death, is my homage to Agatha Christie, the world’s greatest crime writer, who gave us the most original plots. Without any illusions of having achieved the level of Agatha Christie’s best mysteries, I have tried in 2011 to capture her style and spirit in terms of the plot, time structure and characters. In doing this, I have based the book on Christie’s views of the good and evil nature of human beings, even though this only in very specific cases tallies with my own personal views.

I have also, as I did in my first novel The Human Flies, tried to find my own literary crime niche by taking inspiration from three classical crime writers of bygone years. This time, once again, I have written a plot inspired by Christie, with a detective duo who are more akin to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s tales about Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson. And again, I go beyond the realms of the British crime tradition of Christie and Doyle, and follow in the footsteps of the great Belgian writer, Georges Simenon, in trying to combine an exciting crime mystery with an engaging story about people’s different fates and histories.

If my crime novel, The Satellite People, is successful in these endeavours, then it is to a large extent thanks to my good advisors who have worked with me on the manuscript. My editor, Anne Fløtaker at Cappelen Damm, has once again been my most important advisor, but I have also benefited greatly from the input given by Anders Heger and Nils Nordberg. I would also like to give two thousand thanks to my invaluable group of personal advisors, which this time includes my good friends Mina Finstad Berg, Ingrid Baukhol, Ellen Øen Carlsen, Synne Corell, Lene Li Dragland, Anne Lise Fredlund, Kathrien Næss Hald, Hanne Isaksen, Bjarte Leer-Salvesen, Torsten Lerhol, Espen Lie, Ellisiv Reppen, Kristine Kopperud Timberlid, Arne Tjølsen, Katrine Tjølsen and Magnhild K. B. Uglem, as well as my sister, Ida Lahlum. This time, Mina deserves to be mentioned before all others for her enthusiasm from the drawing board to the finished manuscript and for her many important comments on the language and content.

And finally, I would like to offer a more symbolic thank you to someone I have never met, namely the highly successful singer Lena Meyer-Landrut, who came to Norway last year. Her song ‘Satellite’ has kept me company for many an hour while writing this novel and was in part the inspiration for the title.

My articles on this book and other literary topics are freely available (in Norwegian) to those who might be interested on Cappelen Damm’s blog page: www.forlagsliv.no/hansolavlahlum.

Any readers who have questions or comments about the book are welcome to contact me via Facebook, or directly by email: hansolahlum@gmail.com.