6 posts tagged “norway”
Translated by Don Bartlett.
Varg Veum is a private detective based in Bergen. Although he's featured in almost 20 novels, only two of them are readily available in English, both published by Arcadia: THE WRITING ON THE WALL (first published in 1995, 11th in the series) and THE CONSORTS OF DEATH (2006, 14th). I was lucky enough to obtain a second-hand copy of the second in the series, YOURS UNTO DEATH, first published in 1977, so I have some idea of the background of Varg Veum, who was ironically named "Varg", meaning "wolf", by his father - "Varg Veum" taken together meaning "outlaw", to his chagrin but to the mirth of many people he encounters.
Veum is a private eye of the classic mould, having been for many years a social worker specialising in child care. His experiences in this profession led him to become hopeless about the ability or even will of the state to help the many sad cases of abandoned and abused children he and his colleagues encounter. His constant brushes with authority led to a parting of the ways in the 1970s, and a new career as a private detective. The three books I have been able to read in this superb series all feature children and teenagers, and how Veum tries to protect them, often not very successfully - not so much for a lack of his own detective skills, which are pretty sharp, but because of the general hopelessness of their life-circumstances.
THE CONSORTS OF DEATH is a perfect introduction to Varg Veum because almost all of the book takes place in flashback, the first chunk of it back to the time before Veum became a detective and hence before the first book in the series. The reader learns Veum's back story as a social worker as well as being introduced to his newest "case", that of Johnny Boy, an ex-criminal newly released from prison, who has Veum on a "death list" of people he blames for his situation. When Veum learns this information, via an old colleague, he remembers the first time he met Johnny Boy, as a young baby. Later, the two meet again, again in awful circumstances when it appears as if the boy has killed his foster father. In the wake of that incident, Veum and two colleagues look after Johnny for six months before he is again taken into care.
Veum then leaves the social services department, sets up as a private detective and loses touch with the boy, until yet another crime takes place ten years later in a remote farmhouse. Again, Veum becomes involved, and not only becomes aware of a century-old crime in the same area that was never properly solved, but also uncovers many puzzling links and coincidences between all of these cases. The final part of the book returns to the present-day and the resolution of the story of Johnny and all the convoluted motives and relationships that are resolved in a cleverly constructed climax.
I enjoyed this book, and previous novels by this author, for many reasons. First, as Maxim Jakubowski writes on the cover, Varg Veum is a Philip Marlowe figure. The classic PI story is, for me as well as many others, a very large source of appeal of the crime-fiction genre. Gunnar Staalesen really is a worthy inheritor of the mantle of Chandler and Macdonald, both in his multi-level plotting and in his world-weary yet straight talking, semi-tough protagonist. Second, the writing is superb - it is always worth looking out for books translated by Don Bartlett, one of my favourite translators, and THE CONSORTS OF DEATH is no exception. Norwegian society and scenery are described with laconic beauty and meaning, an atmospheric background for the events of the story. Here is an example:
It was beginning to get dark as I drove into Osen where the Gaular waterway plunged like a faded bridal veil towards the fjord. High up above the mountains the moon had appeared, the earth's pale consort, distant and alone in its eternal orbit around the chaos and turmoil below. It struck me that the moon wasn't alone after all. There were many of us adrift and circling around the same chaos, the same turmoil, without being able to intervene or do anything about it. We were all consorts of death.
I can't recommend this book too highly. I thoroughly enjoyed every aspect of it, and am only a bit frustrated that because as most of the series is not (yet?) translated, there are gaps in the past 20 years of Veum's career which are hinted at but I can't fill in. In my opinion, this series stands alongside Connelly, Crais, Temple, Camilleri and others, who are among the very best modern exponents of the poetic yet tough detective story with strong, classic plots; a social conscience; and perfect pitch in terms of a sense of place.
Translated by Charlotte Barslund.
Karin Fossum brings her usual cool empathy to this apparently simple tale of a married couple out for a Sunday afternoon walk in the forest, who discover the body of a young boy. The wife, Kristine, is deeply upset by the discovery, which brings into focus her own long-standing desire for a child, and the refusal of her husband, Reinhardt, to have a family. Reinhardt, on the other hand, is excited by the discovery, taking photos of the boy on his mobile phone (to the shock of Kristine) so he can show his friends, who he invites round for a grim dinner party to regale them with the find, and even, later on, attending the funeral of the dead boy and witnessing the mother's grief.
The first half of this novel is more of a dissection of a marriage than a mystery. Kristine sees a man walking away from her just before discovering the dead boy, and it seems likely that he's the perpetrator. Rather than condemning, the author remains non-judgemental and detached, showing the reader how life appears not only from the criminal's perspective but also through the eyes of detectives Sejer and Skarre, who seek to understand how someone could be a paedophile, rather than starting a witch-hunt. To this end, the police colleagues interview Philip Akeson, a sex offender who has done his time and been released back into society - and although like everyone, I find the whole subject of sex offences revolting (particularly where children are involved), I admire the author for going where few dare to tread, presenting the arguments fairly and even with sympathy and humour, not least because Akeson is shown as being rather likeable.
Half-way though the book, a second boy disappears. His name is Edwin and he's obese. He went to the same primary school as Jonas August, the dead boy, so detectives and village-folk alike suspect that the same person is responsible. By now, the reader knows quite a bit about Jonas August's killer, and we know it isn't the con-man boyfriend of Edwin's mother or the gay teacher at school who is very friendly to all the boys and invites them to his house to do jigsaws (to the consternation of his partner) - but never asks the girls. Who is implicated in Edwin's disappearance is an open question, however.
As usual, I am very impressed by Karin Fossum's talent and originality. In THE WATER'S EDGE she has taken an upsetting and controversial topic– the painful death of a child or children - and has made it palatable and interesting even to a sensitive reader who, frankly, cannot usually bear to think about the subject. The author uses the events in the book to look at people, their attitudes and relationships, in both small and large ways. Some of these are fleeting - how the villagers react to immigrant farm workers or the parents' association's suspicion of the gay teacher once Edwin disappears - and others are dissected in more detail, such as Kristine's gradual pulling away from her dominant marriage partner, or the study of Edwin's mother. All of this is done with insight, yet the mystery builds up almost under the surface of the book and, by the end of the novel, is sufficiently resolved for us to know what happened, without having all the loose ends artificially tied up.
Sejer and Skarre are relatively insubstantial characters, serving mainly to keep the plot going and to provide a neutral vehicle for the exploration of various human behaviours. Occasionally one of them might have a personal reflection, for example Sejer thinks of his daughter and his grandson - but on the whole their personal lives remain on the back-burner while the author looks at the reflections from all the faces of the prism of her characters and the situations that they have created for themselves. This is a wonderful book, short and haunting, and beautifully naturally translated. If you read it, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
Translated by Don Bartlett.
In the cold of winter in Oslo, Harry Hole is investigating the case of a young drug addict who has apparently committed suicide among the containers in a shipyard. He's undecided about his future with the police force: although he has achieved closure concerning the death of his colleague (described in three previous novels: The Redbreast, Nemesis and The Devil's Star), the reverberations have left him even more outside the mainstream than before. His lover Rakel has rejected him in favour of a careerist doctor. What's more, his sympathetic boss, Bjarne Moller, has retired and been replaced by a stickler for discipline, Gunnar Hagan. It isn't long before Harry and his new boss are rubbing each other up the wrong way, as Hagan reacts against Harry's intuitive and freewheeling approach (no doubt he would be shocked at Harry's failure ever to have had business cards printed).
Harry is nothing if not a good detective, though, and rapidly unearths the facts behind the young man's death which his younger, slicker colleagues have overlooked. His method of solving the case proves critical to the climax of the next investigation, which takes up the bulk of the book.
An assassin from Vukovar is in Oslo, whose target is a member of the Salvation Army. We are told the life story of the assassin, known as the Little Redeemer for his actions in the terrible wars during the break-up of the former Yugoslavia. We also learn a great amount about the workings of the Norwegian branch of the Salvation Army, the raging jealousies and relationship traumas of its younger members, and the shady business dealings concerning the lucrative properties that the Army owns in Oslo. I admired the fact that the author managed to keep me interested in the story of the Little Redeemer, because the 'disaffected assassin' theme is one that crops up quite often in thrillers and tends to create a sense of deja vu.(For an example of an excellent book in this subgenre, I highly recommend The Serbian Dane by Leif Davidson.)
I was less interested in the Salvation Army characters, finding most of them (the men, certainly) either unsympathetic or not well-drawn, or both. I would prefer to have read more about Harry, his personal life and his colleagues. As the plot thickens - and it is a very fast-moving, exciting plot - there are a couple of rather gruesome set-pieces, as well as another tragedy that strikes the Oslo police team. Harry himself presses on with the investigation, finding himself drawn to one of the Army members, which of course distracts him from his pursuit of the Redeemer. As I've found previously with this author, the final disentangling of who hired the assassin and why does really stretch credulity - however, the story of the Redeemer and his circumstances are, perhaps because more simple, rather moving, and I was pleased by Harry's choices in the end-game.
Although you don't need to have read the earlier books in the series to enjoy The Redeemer, I think you'll enjoy it a lot more if you have done. There are nuances running throughout the text, for example Harry's relationship with watches and with his retired ex-boss, that won't make much sense in isolation of the previous novels. I think the Harry Hole books comprise one of the top police-procedural series being written today. Although the books have flaws, they are flaws of ambition - the plots are very clever, and if perhaps they are sometimes a bit too clever, that's better than the opposite. These novels are thoughtful, intelligent, exciting and above all, have a great central character.
'You're moving into a difficult area for theologians, Hole. Are you a Christian?'
'No. I'm a detective. I believe in proof.'
I recommend reading all the books - in the right order. (English readers won't have been able to read the first two chronological novels in the series, which have not yet been translated, but the next one, The Snowman, will be out in English fairly soon, and follows directly on from The Redeemer.)
Translated by Don Bartlett.
I have been having a bit of a Jo Nesbo fest recently, as part of a possibly doomed attempt to read all the shortlisted novels for the Crime Writers' Association international dagger award before the winner is announced in about a week's time. I had read four of the six books when the shortlist was announced, which admittedly helps a lot.
Although I had not read Jo Nesbo's The Redeemer, I won it at Crime Fest, so had a copy to hand. Life is not that simple, though. Nesbo's Harry Hole series is one of many to be translated into English out of chronological order - and in this particular case, it's an egregious crime because the impact of the "trilogy within the series" (The Redbreast, Nemesis and The Devil's Star) is ruined if you do what I did and read the third one first, followed by the first one. The Redeemer follows on from this "trilogy".
Nothing for it, then, but to buy Nemesis and read that first. And a gripping read it is, too. The character of the police detective, Harry Hole, previously rather patchy and chaotic, began to gel in my mind. I'm sure he looks exactly like Don Bartlett, the excellent translator of the series (though Don has more hair than Harry). Nemesis turns out to be a very exciting book. Harry is mourning the death of a colleague and has his suspicions (actually, convictions) of who is the perpetrator. However, after six months he has failed to find any evidence so has agreed with his boss to go back to his usual duties. His girlfriend Rakel and her son Oleg are in Russia, where Rakel is petitioning the courts for custody of Oleg. While she's away, Harry bumps into Anna, a woman with whom he had a brief fling some years previously. Anna is now an artist of sorts, and has created a strange triptych of paintings surrounding a lighted statue - Nemesis. Harry is soon investigating two crimes, in an intensely plotted and detailed narrative (you need to read every paragraph carefully to spot all the clues). There are some real implausibilities in the plot when the ending is finally revealed - not least the perpetrator of both the crime and the way in which Harry is manipulated in his attempts to solve it - but I didn't mind because by then I was won over to Harry: he's a flawed, angst-ridden, funny alcoholic - inevitably a maverick but one who in the main uses his brain and wit rather than his fists to demonstrate his independence.
A long queue of people waits patiently at a door. Old and young, in small groups or alone, everyone waits silently. Every year, the author who lives in the house on the other side of the door will choose the first in line and write that person's story. At the head of the queue is a woman carrying a baby in her arms.
But that night, the author is startled out of her sleep by a man in her room. He is from the queue, but is not first in line. He is pleading for his story to be told, believing himself to be too nondescript and insufficiently interesting ever to justify his turn. After some conversations with him, the author is, almost reluctantly, but with some strange willingness, drawn into first providing the man with a name, Alvar Eide, and then into sitting down to start his story.
And so begins the story within the story. Alvar, age 42 and with a "comb-over", works at an art gallery in a small town in Norway. His parents are dead, he has no friends and has never been in a relationship. He lives alone in a small flat; lives a very regular, predictable existence; and is very good at his job, selling, framing and doing minor restorations on the works of art at the gallery. We are drawn in to Alvar's life, learning a little about his childhood and how he has become the adult he is. He understands the paintings in the gallery and through his emotional instinct and attunement, is able to relate to his customers, knowing instinctively which piece will suit them, and cleverly yet honestly persuading them either to buy or to avoid certain works.
Karin Fossum wonderfully draws us into the story of the insecure yet sensitive Alvar, as his ordered life gradually becomes more and more out of control after a small good deed leads to a destruction of all his values. At the same time, we continue to witness the writing of the novel, as Alvar visits the author to express his concern at the way events are going, and otherwise to try to influence her telling of his story. We realise that Alvar and the author are very similar in character, and by the device of making the novel's character a "real person" to its author, we see tantalising glimpses of the creative process as well as gaining insights into the character of the author herself. BROKEN is a wonderful, haunting book, full of powerful, overwhelming emotions, yet written with Karin Fossum's usual economy of style. The minutiae of Alvar's daily life are as compelling as the dramatic closing chapters of this brilliant story.
In the provincial, decaying Norwegian town of Odda, journalist Robert Bell is a cynical observer, relishing his self-chosen role of outsider, constantly sizing-up and judging his fellow-citizens. He enjoys his lonely job at an outpost for a big newspaper, though has been regularly frustrated at the paper's refusal to publish what he regards as serious investigation, instead having to write frothy pieces.
As the story opens, a nineteen-year-old teenager has driven into the local river and, although no body has been discovered, presumably drowned. Robert is told by his manager, a delightfully accurate portrait of a voice down the phone, a politically correct, bland and smug woman whose composure Robert can never seem to ruffle however hard he tries, to follow the case. He does so, efficiently but upholds his journalistic integrity by refusing to take part in either exploiting the boy's family (however much they may seem to welcome it) or to join in the general condemnation of the Serbian asylum seekers who live in a local hostel and are considered by all to be the obvious culprits. Journalists from other papers and media turn up, including an unpleasant hotshot from Robert's own publication who muscles-in on Robert's area and patronisingly sets out to show Robert how it is done.
As well as the crime investigation, Robert's personal problems - and perhaps his reason for living in a place he seems to despise - come to the fore. His brother Frank is the local chief of police, but the two are cold with each other. We soon learn that the strains in the relationship are caused to a large extent by sibling rivalry over Irene, Frank's wife and Robert's lover.
THE SHADOW IN THE RIVER is an assured first novel, well translated into colloquial English. The author superbly conveys an atmosphere of mean gossip and despair as factories have closed down, causing endemic unemployment and encouraging a culture of malicious gossip. The Serbs are an easy target, and Robert's various ways of standing against the racism all around him are the most bleakly amusing, and in the case of the boy "Ronaldo", poignant, parts of the book.
Although Robert does eventually work out the reasons for the crime, there are no neat conclusions or tidied-up ends. This passage sums up Robert's beliefs and the book's philosophy:
"I thought how in detective films everything begins in darkness. With each succeeding scene people and events slowly emerge into light. The past becomes clearer and easier to understand. In the end everything can be explained and the reckoning paid. In reality things happen the other way round. Things seem clear and comprehensible, before they descend into the murk and the muck. As the end approaches you lose all track of the plot and have no idea how it's going to end."
I highly recommend this short, readable, if bleak, book. It isn't a conventional detective story, but the atmosphere and interactions between the characters are an end in themselves. The author has something he wants to say about globalisation and immigration, and he says it well. I enjoyed it very much.
