Where Roses Never Die

... stunning 16th entry in his series starring Varg Veum

The strengths of the Veum yarns are all in evidence ... The author also does a superior job of building suspense ...

… a  classical crime novel which keeps the reader in suspense from first to last chapter.

... A well-written and exciting and very classic Varg Veum novel.

Staalesen shares a similar style and concerns with Fossum, and there is a world-weary existential sadness that hangs over his central detective. The prose is stripped back and simple, and both writers like to leave the deep emotion bubbling under the surface – the real turmoil of their characters’ lives just under the surface for the reader to intuit, rather than have it spelled out for them.

With its exploration of family dynamics and the complex web of human behaviour, Staalesen’s novel echoes the great California author Ross MacDonald’s Lew Archer mysteries … mature and captivating.

Norwegian master Staalesen is an author who eschews police procedural narratives for noirish private eye pieces … with some abrasive social commentary.