About
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Born in 1973, Claus Hagstrøm grew up in Horsens, Denmark. He studied Communications , Information Science and Cultural Communication at the University of Copenhagen. He holds a Masters degree in Cultural Studies. In addition, he has been self-employed for a number of years.
His first novel was the erotic scandi-noir crime story ’Solstrejf’ (2016), the first of a series featuring shabby police consultant Kristian Wang who tries to solve bestial crimes with sexually deviant motives. Claus Hagstrøm explains his books and his reasons for writing like this: ”First and foremost, I am inspired by my life-long passion for literature of any kind. I have read the major classics, I have read the easy-going, page-turning entertainment novels – and I have read anything in between. This avid passion has nurtured my imagination – and my imagination never takes a break. It is constantly busy making up stories about the things I notice in the world around me. When I write crime novels, I am drawn by the age-old battle between good and evil, light and darkness. The hidden, unfair powers that triumph way too often are fascinating, but my fascination by the personal sacrifices made by the hero in his or her quest to serve the good of the people is – luckily, I might add – much more intense than the desire to be attracted by the dark sides of the moon. If a story has an underdog, he or she will always be the character that I support. The man or woman who tumbles, falls and takes a beating – but against all odds fights back against superior forces and social injustice. Sex and blunt violence always have a prominent place in my novels. These are the very actions in which human beings most resemble the animals we descend from. Sexual activity and violence is capable of both attracting and disgusting us” Claus describes himself as a melancholic day dreamer, a romantic and nostalgic aesthetician. He started writing as a child – this was his way of extending the joy he found in reading. First he let himself be captured by other people’s fiction, then he disappeared into fictious worlds of his own. Personally, Claus will read “almost anything”, if of a certain quality. A book MUST entertain him – if not, he will abandon it and try his luck with another one. That is why a few of the major literary masterpieces are still unread by Claus – they simply did not entertain him. The story must be both interesting and well-written. Beautiful words are not enough… ‘Måneskin’ is special because the story takes place in the town where Claus lived when he wrote it. He knows every broken flagstone in the streets. Thus it ended up being a personal book – in contrast to ‘Solstrejf’ which was set on neutral ground, so to speak, in Copenhagen. He as numerous plans for the future, but his short-term goal is to finish the series of down-at-heel consultant Kristian Wang – a man with a lot more stories to tell ;-) He is planning to release a number of books in the “True Crime” genre – and in the more distant future, his plans include more non-crime fiction books. |
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