literature in translation – Page 2 – What Cathy Read Next…

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

Find Where Roses Never Die on Goodreads

Purchase links
Hive | Amazon UK
Links provided for convenience only, not as part of an affiliate programme

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

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.

About the Book

An elderly man gives virtuoso piano performances in airports and train stations. To the incredulity of the passers-by, he refuses their offers to play in concert halls, or at prestigious gatherings. He is waiting for someone, he tells them.

Joseph was just sixteen when he was sent to a religious boarding school in the Pyrenees: les Confins, a dumping ground for waifs, strays, and other abandoned souls. His days were filled with routine and drudgery, and he thought longingly of the solace he found through music in his former life.

Joe dreams constantly of escape, but it seems impossible. That is, until a chance encounter with the orphanage’s benefactor leads him to Rose, and a plan begins to form…

Format: Paperback (233 pages) Publisher: Gallic Books
Publication date: 12th December 2022 Genre: Contemporary Fiction, Literature in Translation

Find Devils and Saints on Goodreads

Purchase links
Bookshop.org
Disclosure: If you buy a book via the above link, I may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookshops

Hive | Amazon UK
Links provided for convenience only, not as part of an affiliate programme

My Review

I’m rarely disappointed by a book from Gallic Books – several of them vied for a place in my Books of the Year list. I also loved the author’s previous book A Hundred Million Years and a Day so I came to Devils and Saints with high expectations. I was not disappointed. It’s a quite wonderful story told with tenderness and insight.

Left alone in the world following a tragic accident, Joseph arrives at Les Confins believing his stay will be only temporary. Sadly that is not to be. The event that left him an orphan took place on the day of the Apollo 11 Moon landing and Joseph comes to think of his position as like that of astronaut Michael Collins – ‘the one whose name everyone forgot’ – who flew the Apollo 11 command module and ‘disappeared’ for forty-seven minutes during every orbit of the Moon. ‘Forty-seven minutes when all communication was impossible. Forty-seven minutes of silence.’

I loved the way the author depicted the changing dynamics between Joseph and other boys at the orphanage: from initial hostility, to grudging acceptance into the secret society known as ‘The Lookout’ and finally to firm friendship. The individual characters of the boys are brilliantly observed. There’s Sinatra who’s convinced the truth about his origins will one day be confirmed, Weasel who is responsible for a clandestine trade in small luxuries, Edison, the genius whose brains will play a vital role, and Souzix, who is obsessed with finding out the ending of the film Mary Poppins. And I defy anyone not to fall in love with Momo, silent for much of the book but whose eventual words may break your heart.

In contrast, there are two distinctly less likeable characters: the fanatical priest in charge of Les Confins, Father Sénac, whose eyes are like ‘a silver-grey blade’ and can ‘flush out sin’, and the orphanage supervisor, whom the boys have nicknamed ‘Toad’, whose speciality is devising particularly cruel punishments for minor misdemeanours. ‘Toad was a connoisseur of suffering: he liked it to be aged over many years, with a long finish, the kind of suffering he could sip from time to time, smacking his lips in delight.’

There’s a real air of Dickens’ Oliver Twist about the orphanage’s austere regime, with the daily routine of chores, lessons and prayers punctuated by whistle blasts. The place is permanently freezing and Joseph’s first dinner consists of a slice of toast covered with melted bone marrow and coarse salt. While he finds it as vile as it sounds, the other boys seem to regard it as haute cuisine.

Although heartbreaking at times – I was on the brink of tears as the boys of The Lookout take part in a ‘sadness contest’ – there’s always a generous helping of humour. Wait until you get to the part with the encyclopedia and you’ll see what I mean.

Sam Taylor’s translation expertly showcases the author’s wonderful turns of phrase such as the description of the orphanage as smelling of ‘lessons learned and prayers never granted’.

There’s so much more I could praise about this book – I haven’t even mentioned the way the relationship forms between Joseph and Rose – so I’ll just say Devils and Saints is a touching, beautifully told story of endurance, friendship and hope.

I received an advance review copy courtesy of Gallic Books.

In three words: Tender, moving, uplifting

About the Author

Jean-Baptiste Andrea was born in 1971 in Saint-Germain-en-Laye and grew up in Cannes. He is a director and screenwriter. He wrote his first English-language feature film Dead End in 2003, to critical acclaim. His first novel, Ma Reine, was published in France in 2017 and won twelve literary prizes including the Prix du Premier Roman and the Prix Femina des Lycéens. For two years he travelled to more than 50 cities, in France and abroad, meeting readers, booksellers and librarians. Now he is leaving behind the cinema for literature. (Photo/bio credit: Publisher author page)

About the Translator

Born in Nottinghamshire, England in 1970, Sam Taylor began his career as a journalist with The Observer. In 2001, he moved to southwest France, where he wrote four novels. In 2010, he translated his first novel: Laurent Binet’s HHhH. He now lives in the United States and works as a literary translator and author. Recent translations include The Truth about the Harry Quebert Affair, The Heart (for which he won the French-American Translation Prize) and Lullaby/The Perfect Nanny.