Picked up a Max Sjowall-Per Wahloo novel at Downtown Books and News in Asheville. One of the series of books I saw around a lot at used book stores in the 70s-80s (and maybe my dad's shelves at home) but never read. Snapped one up for a little retro mystery.
One of the tropes here is the international crime syndicate, specifically the shadowy global group of "assassins for hire." This is a motif that has had legs through the years, surviving as far as Killing Eve on Netflix and even the Mr and Mrs Smith mini-franchise, first a movie with Brangelina, then a show with Donald Glover (apparently there's a season 2 coming, though we stopped after two episodes. Kinda forgot about it).
It's hard to figure out what gives this trope its legs. Graham posits that it may be because attributing persistent criminality to one country/ethnicity or another could be dangerous to a brand/franchise in a shifting geopolitical/moral environment. "Those Mexicans" or "those Chinese" could quickly be a commercial liability, but who will find fault with an amoral international syndicate composed of a mix of people? We can all hate and fear those. (As an aside, remember how the bad guys in the initial Die Hard were Germans, of all things?). I think that's as good a suggestion as any. I must read on.
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