How A Death in Denmark Came into Being

When I first thought about writing a murder mystery and political thriller, I was excited. After my first few attempts, I decided that to be a successful mystery writer I had to learn to plot, which I had never previously succeeded at, so I left the story to stew in my head.

But I couldn’t let go of Gabriel Præst, my private-investigator protagonist.

My husband, Søren Rasmussen, who is Danish, and I talked about and created him. Gabriel Præst was bald—loved a good fedora. Was a snappy dresser— designer all the way. Lived in the famous Kartoffelrækkerne, the historical potato row of town houses in the center of Copenhagen—a town house that he was constantly renovating. He was not an alcoholic or a drug addict or tortured as so many Nordic noir male protagonists are. He was a good father and close to his daughter. He liked good food and wine. He was single. He had lovers. He had close friends and real relationships. He had a good sense of humor. He knew himself.

I was conflicted about writing him though. I asked my husband if I had the right to write from a white man’s perspective. His answer was, “Since so many middle-aged, white men think they can write from a woman’s . . . or anyone else’s perspective, I don’t see why you can’t.”

My sons felt that I didn’t just have the authority but an obligation to write Gabriel Præst, as I could see the things a native Dane, a white Dane, a Danish man would not see. I mean if your family isn’t going to be on your team, who else is?

So, I started to write the book. I wanted to talk about the Danish xenophobia. The inherent racism that Danes refuse to acknowledge.

I was always fascinated with Denmark’s World War II history, so it came almost organically to connect today’s anti-Muslim sentiment to 1930–40s anti-Semitism, despite that amazing story of the Danes’ courageous effort to save over 7,000 of their country’s Jews during the Nazi occupation of Denmark.

I wondered how I could tell these stories. And then, one day, just like that, it all fell into place. A right-wing politician is murdered, and a Muslim immigrant is arrested and convicted for killing her. But he didn’t do it. He was framed because she knew something about someone powerful.

My husband was a great help here, and we talked about what would be the kind of secret that someone would kill to protect. The secret was an old one, from World War II.

In the end, that felt like the easy part, though it took me several years to put it together. The writing was tough because I had to learn to plot. Several times I would paint myself into a corner and had to delete more pages than I wrote. But as books go, this is one of my favorites. Despite the challenge of plotting, I loved researching and writing it. My husband helped with the research; my sons helped me edit it and at times said things like, “No guy talks like that and especially a total bad ass like Gabriel Præst.”

And you know what, Gabriel Præst is a total bad ass. I loved writing him.

ABOUT AMULYA MALLADI

Amulya Malladi is the bestselling author of eight novels, including The Copenhagen Affair, A House for Happy Mothers, and The Mango Season. Her books have been translated into several languages, including Dutch, French, German, Spanish, Danish, Romanian, Serbian, and Tamil. She won a screenwriting award for her work on Ø (Island), a Danish series that aired on Amazon Prime Global and Studio Canal+. Currently living in California, she is a Danish citizen who was born and raised in India.