New Year, New Thoughts
Four Scandinavian noirs, plus an explanatory prologue
Prologue
Hello there, and happy 2026, as I stick my head above the parapet.
There’s a quote from one of John Lennon’s final interviews that occupies a permanent corner of my brain: “I’m really talking to the people who grew up with me and saying, ‘Here I am now. How are you, how’s your relationship going? Did you get through it all? Wasn’t the Seventies a drag? Here we are, well, let’s try to make the Eighties good.’”
Lennon, seemingly in a good place at last, didn’t get his chance to fulfill the wish. But for the past decade, every year like clockwork I remember him saying that. I think, last year was a drag, let’s try to make this one good.
And last year was a horrendous drag. To be clear—I’m not talking about personal matters, but public ones. The endless drumbeat of terrible news. It wore me the hell down. I know I’m not alone, to say the least. But in terms of personal results, I powered through my day job and outside assignments, and wound up with (I’m not kidding) at least a half-dozen pieces for this place that I couldn’t get in gear to finish. The writer’s voice in my head had turned nasty and negative. The longer the silence went on, the harder it became to break.
I don’t really believe in writer’s block, but I do believe in situational melancholy.
Well, here we are, Mr. Lennon. It’s 2026, and I’m telling my inner voice to shut the fuck up. The fact is, I did work on projects in 2025 that I loved. At Linktree you can see a rundown.