The Easter crime wave sweeping Norway

Visitors to Norway during Easter might find the streets emptier than usual, thanks to the nation's cherished Eastertime obsession: retreating to isolated cabins to binge crime fiction.

It all began on a dark March night, long ago. Affluent tourists on the Oslo-Bergen railway chatted on their way to the ski slopes. Lights twinkled in mountainside huts as the train sped on through the night. Hidden among them, robbers chose their marks. Their escape plan: to jump off the train and ski away with the loot.

So begins the plot of the 1923 Norwegian crime novel Bergenstoget plyndret i nat (The Bergen Train Was Looted Last Night), that kickstarted Påskekrim ("Easter crime").

Inspired by American Westerns, the book became a sensation thanks to canny marketing: its title was printed directly below the masthead of Norway's national newspaper in the days leading up to Easter. Readers mistook the book's title for a headline and the confusion generated enormous publicity – and sales. Ever since, the Easter period has become associated with crime fiction, and eventually Norwegians began celebrating by reading suspenseful stories, from murder mysteries and heists to detective tales and true crime.