The Queen of Nordic Noir has opened ‘The Beach Hotel’

To mark his 60th birthday, hotelier Werner Gyllenmark is celebrating with a massive party. When someone dies, the party’s over – but the mystery has just begun.

A blonde woman in a floral top is seen head and shoulders. She sits in a cane chair, with greenery in the distanct background.

Jenny Ulving McCabe in The Beach Hotel. Credit: Viaplay

If you were looking to crown the queen of Nordic crime fiction, then Swedish crime author Camilla Läckberg would be at the head of the coronation queue. Her Fjällbacka series of mysteries have been a world-wide smash; combined with spin-offs and side projects, to date she’s sold more than 30 million books across the globe.

She’s conquered television too, with both a Fjällbacka spin-off series and the stand-alone long-running mystery drama Lyckoviken (not to mention last year she made a guest appearance on Sweden’s version of The Masked Singer). Now with her new series The Beach Hotel, she’s found a world of murder and suspense in what you might think would be the least likely place: resort management.

Werner Gyllenmark (Samuel Fröler) is turning sixty, and he’s in the mood to celebrate. As the owner of Saltsjovik Beach Hotel, one of the two main hotels in the Swedish seaside resort town, he’s already got the perfect venue. Friends, family, employees - half the town is invited to what promises to be the party of the year.

A man in a pale cream suit sits in a wicker chair, looking sideways.

Samuel Fröler as Werner Gyllenmark. Credit: Viaplay

His party’s so big, Werner has even invited rival hotel owner and sworn enemy Egil Grip (Dennis Storhøi) to join in the celebrations. Why Egil accepted is a mystery even to his closest family; everybody knows that putting the two men in the same room is a recipe for disaster. As Werner says: “We always invite him. That doesn’t mean he’s welcome”.

There’s already rumblings about successions and new directions for the town’s twin hotels. But it’s not just the party that comes to a sudden halt when one of the party-goers meets a surprising demise. Now a new generation finds themselves thrust into the spotlight, with Julie (Sofia Karemyr) and Sebastian (Filip Wolfe Sjunnesson) becoming prime candidates to head up their respective hotels even before the body is cold.

A woman in a green dress stands on a beach, talking into a phone. A man in a bright shirt and blue jacket stands behind her as if about to speak to her.

Filip Wolfe Sjunnesson and Sofia Karemyr in 'The Beach Hotel'. Credit: Viaplay

The repercussions don’t stop there. Egil’s wife Marianne (Irina Eidsvold Tøie) and Werner’s girlfriend Vendela (Jenny Ulving McCabe) rapidly find their lives turned upside down. Sebastian’s sister Petra (Miriam Forsberg) sees her planned-for future slipping away as well. And as the mysteries and schemes pile up, one question looms large. Was the sudden death really the result of a medical mishap, or something more sinister?

If that all sounds like the setting for a classic soap opera, that’s intentional. “Soap opera is an incredible genre that viewers really connect with,” Läckberg

said

at the series launch. “But as every soap-fan knows, there’s often something lurking behind an idyll. It’s time for audiences to sink their teeth into a new soap with exciting new characters and intrigues.”

...there’s often something lurking behind an idyll.
Camilla Läckberg

So yes, The Beach Hotel may have some soap opera DNA in the mix – after all, it’s about two multi-generational families that are running rival luxury hotels. But it’s the mystery side of things that rapidly pushes itself to the fore. Läckberg knows how to set up a compelling crime story, and while there’s plenty of soap-style scheming and betrayal, there’s also break-ins, disappearances, debts, and dark pasts reaching out to haunt the present.

Not to mention that it all takes place by the beach, which has to top the list of least likely settings for a Nordic murder mystery. It’s not just a nice location to look at: having a string of sinister events occurring in a nice but not over-the-top luxury hotel that’s overlooking a perfectly respectable holiday beach somehow makes it all the murder and mystery seem just that little bit more down-to-earth.

A woman leans on a wooden bar. A barman stands on the other side, smiling.

The beach resort setting makes for a large cast. Credit: Viaplay

The setting isn’t the only way The Beach Hotel uses contrasts to give things an intriguing twist. By making a traditional soap opera location into the setting for a mystery thriller, all the plotting and scheming suddenly has real stakes – when one person is dead and the killer remains uncaught, more bodies are sure to follow. And having a large cast who all have plenty of motive for murder (and for framing each other for it) provides plenty of suspects to keep the surprises coming.

Here one death is merely scratching the surface, and anyone could be someone to watch out for. That barman chatting away to Petra’s girlfriend might be just a harmless part of the scenery, a friendly figure to locals and guests alike. Or he could be hiding his own sinister secrets reaching back to the establishment of the hotel itself, nursing a sinister grudge that’s finally bloomed into deadly action.

Well, maybe not him. But you get the idea.

Season 1 of The Beach Hotel is streaming now at SBS On Demand.