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K- #11
Ran
Byen hvor de tre vennene bor, skakes opp av flere ran og tyverier fra eldre mennesker, og politiet står helt uten spor. Nærmest ved en tilfeldighet blir de tre vennene trukket inn i saken, og gjennom 132 spennende sider følger vi deres kamp for å avsløre banden som står bak.
132 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1995
1 person want to read
About the author
Johan-Arnt Strøm
30 books2 followersAuthor from Bodø, Northern Norway, who is well-known for his Hardy Boys-esque crime series of books for children (the K-series), all set in the local area. He also co-authored with his wife the first editions of the German to Norwegian (and vice versa) technical dictionaries, and wrote several books on locally important boats and local boat traditions.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
March 4, 2023
In the eleventh book about the three friends there are three other friends that make off with what doesn't belong to them.
Most of the books in the K-series were inspired by real life events. Often it's obvious which events those were, but with Ran (translation: Robbery/Burglary¹) it's difficult to tell. To the public one robbery rarely appears very different from another. The same goes for burglaries. Of course, this is because the public get this information from the news, and the news rarely says more than that someone has made off with something that isn't theirs, by either taking it directly from the owners or by breaking into their house to get hold of it. Nor do the crooks in this book make more of themselves than the average robber/burglar does. They take what isn't theirs in an unexceptional way. There is nothing about their operation that could hint to a specific happening. So, that means that the author is the only one who can tell us what inspired this story, and they have divulged nothing more than this single sentence: ”Ran is based on a real event” (reviewer's own translation; Myklebust, V. R.; 'En stri Strøm', Nordlands Fremtid; 12th February 1996; p. 43), and that is it.
This isn't important by itself. What does make a difference is that the book treats the crimes the same way as the news do, by not adding anything exceptional to them. The crooks want to steal something and then they do. The book has to look elsewhere to find something to raise excitement with and it does that by making the crooks more vicious, more willing to go out of their way to punish the three friends for spying on them. While the three friends have faced antagonists before who were both dangerous and violent, this is the first time they have faced someone as vengeant as these ones.
What is perhaps even more unsettling is that these antagonists are three friends, two boys and one girl, just like the heroes are. Knut, Per, and Kristine have a restlessness about them, a higher need for excitement than most people have, and are just as unwilling to let something go. This meeting begs a question – if they had never taken to crime solving to find this excitement, would they have ended up on the other side? Would they have turned to crime instead? Likely the author never intended anyone to make such a comparison, but I remember making it when I read Robbery/Burglary as a child, and the question came to me again as I was re-reading it now. To me it seems that the most willing heroes are the same that could have fared far worse in more unfortunate circumstances.
As every book in the K-series before it, Robbery/Burglary was written to be easy to read. Teaching kids to enjoy books is something that was always important to the author, and the K-series were always intended to be enjoyed also by those who normally would have felt that reading is too difficult to be enjoyable. The series was immensely popular in the local area, to the point where few other books would outsell them in the bookshops there, and its readability ought to be given much of the credit for that.
Another big credit ought to go to how the books are placed in the real world. They make frequent use of place names, including actual street names and companies. Robbery/Burglary is particularly good at this. Every inhabitant of Salten (an area of Northern Norway) would be able to pin point exactly where the three friends are at any given time. This makes the reader feel more involved in what is going on and therefore more engaged in the text. Clearly this is also a reason for the series' success.
I am aware that I haven't mentioned the plot so far, and I don't see a reason to do so. As said, the crooks don't do their crimes in a way that is notable. There isn't much to say about the crimes beyond that they grab the attention of the three friends and that they feel inclined to follow up on them. The book makes up for this in other areas and while it probably isn't the best place to introduce new readers (that honour still goes to the third book, Ubåtjakt (translation: Submarine Pursuit)) it contains most of the elements that made the previous books enjoyable. Readers who are already familiar with the series have all the reason to read this one as well.
1. The Norwegian word 'ran' is used both when talking about robbery and about burglary, as well as larceny and sometimes theft. It's a broad term which the English language has no equivalent to. I have chosen to translate the title as I have because the perpetrators commit both crimes and so it felt imprecise to restrict it to just one of them.
Most of the books in the K-series were inspired by real life events. Often it's obvious which events those were, but with Ran (translation: Robbery/Burglary¹) it's difficult to tell. To the public one robbery rarely appears very different from another. The same goes for burglaries. Of course, this is because the public get this information from the news, and the news rarely says more than that someone has made off with something that isn't theirs, by either taking it directly from the owners or by breaking into their house to get hold of it. Nor do the crooks in this book make more of themselves than the average robber/burglar does. They take what isn't theirs in an unexceptional way. There is nothing about their operation that could hint to a specific happening. So, that means that the author is the only one who can tell us what inspired this story, and they have divulged nothing more than this single sentence: ”Ran is based on a real event” (reviewer's own translation; Myklebust, V. R.; 'En stri Strøm', Nordlands Fremtid; 12th February 1996; p. 43), and that is it.
This isn't important by itself. What does make a difference is that the book treats the crimes the same way as the news do, by not adding anything exceptional to them. The crooks want to steal something and then they do. The book has to look elsewhere to find something to raise excitement with and it does that by making the crooks more vicious, more willing to go out of their way to punish the three friends for spying on them. While the three friends have faced antagonists before who were both dangerous and violent, this is the first time they have faced someone as vengeant as these ones.
What is perhaps even more unsettling is that these antagonists are three friends, two boys and one girl, just like the heroes are. Knut, Per, and Kristine have a restlessness about them, a higher need for excitement than most people have, and are just as unwilling to let something go. This meeting begs a question – if they had never taken to crime solving to find this excitement, would they have ended up on the other side? Would they have turned to crime instead? Likely the author never intended anyone to make such a comparison, but I remember making it when I read Robbery/Burglary as a child, and the question came to me again as I was re-reading it now. To me it seems that the most willing heroes are the same that could have fared far worse in more unfortunate circumstances.
As every book in the K-series before it, Robbery/Burglary was written to be easy to read. Teaching kids to enjoy books is something that was always important to the author, and the K-series were always intended to be enjoyed also by those who normally would have felt that reading is too difficult to be enjoyable. The series was immensely popular in the local area, to the point where few other books would outsell them in the bookshops there, and its readability ought to be given much of the credit for that.
Another big credit ought to go to how the books are placed in the real world. They make frequent use of place names, including actual street names and companies. Robbery/Burglary is particularly good at this. Every inhabitant of Salten (an area of Northern Norway) would be able to pin point exactly where the three friends are at any given time. This makes the reader feel more involved in what is going on and therefore more engaged in the text. Clearly this is also a reason for the series' success.
I am aware that I haven't mentioned the plot so far, and I don't see a reason to do so. As said, the crooks don't do their crimes in a way that is notable. There isn't much to say about the crimes beyond that they grab the attention of the three friends and that they feel inclined to follow up on them. The book makes up for this in other areas and while it probably isn't the best place to introduce new readers (that honour still goes to the third book, Ubåtjakt (translation: Submarine Pursuit)) it contains most of the elements that made the previous books enjoyable. Readers who are already familiar with the series have all the reason to read this one as well.
1. The Norwegian word 'ran' is used both when talking about robbery and about burglary, as well as larceny and sometimes theft. It's a broad term which the English language has no equivalent to. I have chosen to translate the title as I have because the perpetrators commit both crimes and so it felt imprecise to restrict it to just one of them.
Displaying 1 of 1 review