The Writing on the Wall

A few days later private investigator Varg Veum is asked to look for a young girl who is missing. The same day he receives his own death announcement in the mail. What at first seems to be a cut and dried case rapidly develops into something far more dangerous and ugly. In this eleventh book in his Varg Veum series, Staalesen takes Veum back to Bergen setting his sights on teenage prostitution. As always, Staalesen is reflecting modern Norway in his own distinctive way and keeping the reader on a tight line till the surprise ending is sprung.

Review in the magazine Sherlock by Andrew Taylor:

"Staalesen is one of Scandinavia’s finest crime writers, best known for his Varg Veum private eye series set in Bergen, Norway’s second city.  An eminent judge is found dead and clad in women’s lingerie in a hotel room.  A good-looking, well-balanced middle-class teenager disappears.  The girl’s mother hires Varg Veum to find her.  Gradually the two cases come together in carefully crafted narrative that takes the reader from the feminist movement to men behaving badly, from the press to the police, from Girl Guides to prostitutes.

The novel is a slow-burner that reaches a terrific temperature.  Staalesen is a Norwegian Chandler – with fewer wisecracks, perhaps, but capable of generating a dark intensity that few crime writers can rival. 

He paints a haunting and detailed picture of the rain-soaked coastal city and its inhabitants.  He shows us a society streaked with rottenness from top to bottom.  He also writes extremely well, something that comes over even in translation.  He is a master of those subtly resonant sentences that linger in the mind for days.  “Life is something you lose,” says one character.  “Bit by bit.”  

Scandinavian crime fiction is becoming increasingly popular in the UK. It doesn’t come much better than this. Some of Staalesen’s novels have been published here before – among them, Wolves in the Dark and Yours Until Death, both of which were critically acclaimed. Now is the time to start reading him if you haven’t already."