Frank Heller, with his real name Martin Gunnar Serner (1886-1947), was the first internationally famous Swedish crime writer. The son of a clergyman received a PhD in English studies at Lund in 1910. To avoid arrest after a financial fraud he left Sweden for the continent. After loosing the swindled money at Monte-Carlo he tried his hand at writing novels with immediate success. From 1914 he lived mostly at Bornholm/Denmark where he was killed in a bicycle accident in 1947.
In most of Heller's novels the serial character is Filip Collin, a former Lund professor now exiled for his crimes. He shows characteristics of Arsène Lupin (Leblanc, Maurice) and of Frank Heller himself. He is a witty desperado, who takes nothing seriously but can be an excellent, logically sharp detective when that is called for. Heller's best detective stories are about the Jewish doctor Joseph Zimmertür. Unfortunately these haven't been translated into English and are less well known on the continent, too.
"There are, however, certain indications that the Scandinavian countries may soon enter the field as competitors of France and England and America. A Swedish writer, under the nom de guerre of Frank Heller, has had a tremendous success in Europe with a series of novels setting forth the exploits of a Mr. Collin — a kind of Continental Raffles — and several of his books have been translated into English:
The London Adventures of Mr Collin,
The Grand Duke's Finances,
The Emperor's Old Clothes, [The Strange Adventures of Mr. Collin], and
Mr Collin Is Ruined. They are not, however, true detective novels; but the germ of the species is in them, and they indicate an unmistakable tendency toward the Poe-Gaboriau-Doyle tradition." ---
The Great Detective Stories by WH White ('SS Van Dine') (1927)
Bibliography
Only translations into English are listed, OT = Original Title.
The Emperor’s Old Clothes aka The Chinese Coats (1923) OT: Kejsarens gamla kläder (1918)
The Marriage of Yussuf Khan (1923) OT: Yussuf Khans giftermål (1916)
The Grand Duke’s Finances (1924) OT: Storhertigens finanser (1915)
The London Adventures of Mr Collin (1924) aka The Perilous Transactions of Mr Collin OT: Hr Collins affärer i London (1914)
Mr Collin Is Ruined(1925) OT: Herr Collin är ruinerad (1921)
The Thousand and Second Night (1925) OT: Den tusen och andra natten (1923)
The Strange Adventures of Mr Collin (1926) OT: Herr Collins sällsamma äventyr, (1916)
Lead Me Into Temptation (1927) OT: Inled mig i frestelse! (1919)
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