Cold Hearts - Gunnar Staalesen

'On the exterior, everything looked nice and proper, but who had any idea what corruption was hidden - not only behind these walls but any such walls anywhere in the world?'

Cold Hearts is an excellent crime read featuring Norwegian private investigator Varg Veum looking into the case of a missing woman in Bergen, and uncovering crimes as well as a dark history of sadness and a web of lies as his search develops. 

I liked the opening chapter which gave a little background to Veum's life. Then we are taken back six months to a case involving a missing woman. Her friend Hege comes to him to ask him to help find her. Margrethe was a prostitute and, after turning away from a car one night, she was evidently very frightened. The woman who went in the car in her place returned injured. Margrethe's whereabouts are now unknown, and then shortly afterwards it is discovered that her brother Karl, who was in prison, is also missing. 

The book has a great lead character in Veum, a former social worker who puts this background to good use here when it comes to understanding and handling dysfunctional families, and individuals who haven't had a great start in life and/or those whose lives have taken a bad path. He uses his experience to dig deep and unravel the murky secrets of the past and discover how they have influenced the present. I enjoyed his interactions with the police and others as he pursued the truth. 

This is a well-plotted page-turner of a crime story with a firm sense of place. I really enjoyed the first-person narration by Veum; I liked getting to know his ways of thinking and his methods; when it comes to the investigation, he 'was impatient to get started. I knew from bitter experience that time was a thief. When you arrived where you wanted to go it was often too late.'

There's a dark tone to the tale, there is brutality, and there is a real feeling of sadness about the lives that some people endure and the bleaker aspects of society. Veum ponders '...what was it that caused lives to veer off in different directions? Was it possible to predict, or was it simply woven into your destiny from a very young age? Such fragile boundaries,...'

I am sometimes a little hesitant to read a novel that's part of a series when I haven't read the previous books. I found that despite not having read any other books in this series, I didn't have any problems enjoying this one or understanding anything. 

I thought the translation by Don Bartlett was really well done and read well. I love the blue/turquoise tones of the cover, and the image fits the story. I really enjoyed reading this one, for me it was a really good introduction into what seems to be a strong detective series; I will definitely be looking out for more of this series now.

Thank you to the publisher for kindly sending me a copy of this novel for an honest review.

Published by Arcadia Books
Translated from the Norwegian by Don Bartlett

Another Time, Another Life by Leif G. W. Persson - guest review

Translated from Swedish by Paul Norlen

This was my first encounter with this author, styled the Grand Master of Scandinavian Crime Fiction, and I enjoyed it very much. His style is very different from that of say, Jo Nesbo; this is far from thrill a minute crime fiction and the more gruesome of murders are completely absent.

The story spans twenty-five years, starting with an occupation of the West German embassy in Stockholm in 1975 by young German activists which ended in an either deliberate or accidental explosion and the deaths of several people. The surviving terrorists were repatriated to Germany and Sweden settled back into what can only be called complacency. In the second part of the novel, set in 1989 the story concentrates on the murder of a man heartily disliked by everyone who knew him and, unknown at the time, possibly connected with the 1975 attack. The investigation is stalled, largely due to the agenda and incompetence of some of the police officers involved and is eventually shelved. The third part of the story takes us to 2000,  when personalities involved in both the 1975 and 1989 investigations come together to ward off a threatening domestic and international situation.

This author does not use spare prose; the book is very wordy and the style satirical in the extreme, especially at the beginning. The characters generally are both dislikeable and out for their own ends at the expense of all the others, and even the best intentioned of them, such as Anna Holt, have their own agenda. There is quite a lot of sexism, though you gather the author is playing it up for effect, and their are many truly marvellous bitchy asides by both sexes. The main character, who spans the timelines, is Lars Johansson; a very cold fish indeed and to counterbalance him we have the almost farcical Backstrom, who for all his uselessness manages to do very well for himself.

I did really like this book and the satire and black humour had me hooked early on, but it does require an effort to plough through some of the verbiage. You get the feeling that the author as well as his characters has his own agenda and no desire to jump on the current gory fashion in  Scandinavian thrillers.

I would give the book 4 stars. Maybe it may not have the widest appeal in this time of breathless thrillers, but personally I liked the approach and found it a very good read.

Reviewed by Penny Waugh

Published by Doubleday

Many thanks to Penny for reading and reviewing this book for The Little Reader Library.

Thanks to the publisher for kindly sending a copy of this novel for review.

Last Will - Liza Marklund

This is another exciting installment in Liza Marklund’s series featuring crime reporter Annika Bengtzon. In this sixth book, we find Annika attending the Nobel Prizewinners’ dinner in Stockholm, covering this glamorous and prestigious event for the tabloid Evening Post newspaper. Then, as Annika is dancing with journalist Bosse from the rival evening newspaper to the one she works for, shots are fired on the dance floor. Finding herself caught up in the chaos that ensues, Annika is questioned as a witness, and is desperate to get back to the newsroom and tell her story, but this isn’t as straightforward as she or the paper would hope.

Further murders occur, and Annika starts to trace the links between the crimes, but remains in a difficult situation as a reporter who is also a key witness to events. The author brings in a host of modern day concerns including terrorist and security threats and the treatment of those accused, the workings of scientists, researchers and drug companies, and the challenges and demands facing the newspaper in it’s attempts to be current and relevant in the age of the Internet with it’s offering of immediate online news coverage. Annika is as doggedly determined as ever to find out the truth; why was the victim at the Nobel Prizewinners’ dinner targeted and killed? What secrets are hidden at the medical institute at the university? Who is the cold-hearted killer at work here? There is a fascinating series of short narratives interspersed amongst the main storyline, which detail aspects of the life of Alfred Nobel himself, and which cleverly link in and add to the main plot.

There are troubles for Annika at home, too, despite hoping to land her supposed dream family home in the countryside, the relationship between Annika and husband Thomas is decidedly rocky, and the pleasant new neighbourhood doesn’t seem to be as perfect and friendly as it might have first appeared. Once again she is trying to balance motherhood and her career, though a fortuitous event means that she has more money than before at her disposal. But danger is never far away for Annika and the more corruption and lies she uncovers as she edges closer to the truth, the more she must fight to keep herself and those she loves the most safe from harm as the novel builds to a dramatic and nail-biting conclusion.

I love this series, and I really enjoyed this latest installment, another addictive page-turner that I read quickly. I like the short chapters that jump about so that at one moment we hear about Annika’s family life, then about the situation in the newspaper offices, then about what the killer or suspect is up to; this keeps the novel very engaging, fresh and pacy to read. I was perhaps not quite as fond of this one as I was of  both The Bomber and Vanished, but Last Will is certainly still an entertaining, fast-paced and welcome addition to the Annika Bengtzon series, well translated again by Neil Smith, and I am already looking forward to the arrival of the next book.

Reviewed by Lindsay Healy

Published by Corgi

Thank you to the publisher for kindly sending a copy of this novel to read and review.

You can visit the website for this author here.