#BookReview Where Roses Never Die by Gunnar Staalesen, trans. by Don Bartlett @OrendaBooks

About the Book

September 1977. Mette Misvær, a three-year-old girl disappears without trace from the sandpit outside her home. Her tiny, close middle-class community in the tranquil suburb of Nordas is devastated, but their enquiries and the police produce nothing. Curtains twitch, suspicions are raised, but Mette is never found.

Almost 25 years later, as the expiry date for the statute of limitations draws near, Mette’s mother approaches PI Varg Veum, in a last, desperate attempt to find out what happened to her daughter. As Veum starts to dig, he uncovers an intricate web of secrets, lies and shocking events that have been methodically concealed. When another brutal incident takes place, a pattern begins to emerge…

Format: Paperback (272 pages)  Publisher: Orenda Books
Publication date: 1st June 2016 Genre: Crime, Thriller

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My Review

Where Roses Never Die is the eighteenth in the author’s crime series featuring private investigator, Varg Veum. It precedes the only other book in the series I’ve read, Wolves in the Dark. (Not all the books in the series have been translated into English.) But don’t worry if you haven’t read all, or even any, of the previous books in the series because Where Roses Never Die works perfectly well as a standalone.

The book finds Varg in a state that will be familiar to those who’ve read earlier books in the series. He’s recovering from a tragic event in his personal life and the three years since then have disappeared in a haze of booze. He feels he’s ‘wandering restlessly through life’s back streets’. His bank account is all but empty, the new cases have dried up and it’s a struggle to keep off the bottle. Recalling when he was at his worst, he observes, ‘I was the emperor of the empties, and I had hundreds of vassals, empty, silent and glassy-eyed’.

He needs something to rescue him from his ‘daily demons’ and what has become ‘the longest and darkest marathon’ of his life. The unsolved case of Mette Misvær, a three-year-old girl who disappeared without trace nearly 25 years ago, may be just that. It might even give him the willpower, and an excuse, to remain sober.

Varg sets about investigating the case with his customary dogged determination, even going so far as to pick the brains of an old adversary, the now retired Inspector Dankert Muus who handled the case originally. He interviews the residents and former residents of Solstølen Co-Op, a community of five houses. Some of them are extremely reluctant to talk to him. What is it they have to hide? Varg discovers a complex web of connections but one which for a long time seems just to confuse the situation not make it clearer.  It’s a seemingly random, unconnected event that brings about a breakthrough but not before Varg has found himself in a series of sticky situations and uncovered some pretty dark stuff.

Is Mette still alive? If so, who was responsible for her disappearance and how has she remained undiscovered all these years? You’ll have to read the book to discover the answers to those questions and I’ll be very surprised if you find them before Varg.

Varg Veum is a wonderful character. He’s quick-witted and not easily dissuaded from a course of action. Yes, he’s flawed, a little world-weary and often consumed by dark thoughts but he always remains likeable because of his strong sense of justice, wry sense of humour and the fact he doesn’t suffer fools gladly. I was pleased that the end of the book holds out the possibility of a little light coming into Varg’s life once again.

Where Roses Never Die is a skilfully-crafted, compelling crime mystery with plenty of twists and turns.

In three words: Gripping, intriguing, unsettling

Try something similar: End of Summer by Anders de la Motte

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About the Author

One of the fathers of Nordic Noir, Gunnar Staalesen was born in Bergen, Norway, in 1947. He made his debut at the age of twenty-two with Seasons of Innocence and in 1977 he published the first book in the Varg Veum series. He is the author of over twenty titles, which have been published in twenty-four countries and sold over four million copies. Twelve film adaptations of his Varg Veum crime novels have appeared since 2007, starring the popular Norwegian actor Trond Espen Seim. Staalesen has won three Golden Pistols (including the Prize of Honour). Where Roses Never Die won the 2017 Petrona Award for Nordic Crime Fiction, and Big Sister was shortlisted for the award in 2019. He lives with his wife in Bergen. (Photo/bio: Publisher website)

About the Translator

Don Bartlett lives with his family in a village in Norfolk. He completed an MA in Literary Translation at the University of East Anglia in 2000 and has since worked with a wide variety of Danish and Norwegian authors, including Jo Nesbø and Karl Ove Knausgaard.