Published by Orenda Books. Translation by Don Bartlett.
Do you crave a hard-boiled detective noir with a deeply Nordic flair? Staalesen brings it with "Pursued by Death", his latest in the Varg Veum mystery series.
One of the fathers of Nordic Noir, Gunnar Staalesen was born in Bergen, Norway, also the home of his main character, private investigator Varg Veum. In 1977 he published the first book in the Veum series, "Yours Until Death". 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.
"Pursued by Death" is the 14th book in the Varg Veum series, and the first book I've read by Staalesen. Now I wonder why I haven't come across him before. His writing calls to mind classic crime noir authors such as Dashiel Hammett, James M. Cain, and Walter Mosley.
I thought a picture of the area where events take place would be helpful. Much of the action takes place north of Bergen in Masfjorden, but in the book Skuggefjord and the tiny village of Solvik are both fictional.
The book is narrated by Bergen-based private investigator Veum. The PI has just been pulled over by the police on his way home to Bergen from a job in Nordfjord.*
I can hear Veum's remark below in Humphrey Bogart's voice:
“I had hardly swung in to park in front of the café when a car with a flashing blue light on the roof drove in so close to me that we could have got engaged.”
The police stopped him because a disgruntled party from his latest case was calling them with false driving reports. (PIs always have disgruntled parties after them). The cops confiscate Veum's driver's license, so he has to take a bus home. At a stop, two young women on the bus get off and join a young man waiting at a crossroad. Veum notices his van because it's a distinctive old beige and brown VW minibus from the '70s or '80s.
The following week, Veum reads a newspaper article about Jonas Kleiva, who has been reported as missing, and recognizes him as the driver of the minibus. Jonas disappeared the day he went to a fishing town called Solvik for a demonstration against salmon-farming corporation Sunfjord Salmon. Veum reports seeing Jonas to the Bergen police who thank him and since they've dealt with Veum in the past, warn him off investigating on his own. So Veum heads right to Solvik "out of sheer curiosity" and as we all know, ignoring the cops is never a harbinger of luck for your average PI.
After arriving in Solvik, Veum stops into the lone café and meets the owner, Stein Solvik, and Edvard Aga, one of the locals. They get to jawing about the local salmon farming feud, and Aga offers to show Veum the "source of all the misery", i.e. a "dead" fjord. The water there has been poisoned by the dumping of antibiotics and pesticides required for sea-based farming. At the fjord, they spot tyre tracks that lead right down a pier and into the water. Guess which VW minibus they see right below the surface? And in that minibus, the body of a young woman, but not the missing Jonas. So not only did Veum report seeing Jonas pick up the two girls, he just found Jonas' minibus with a dead body inside. He's in for it. The police have questions and so does Veum.
When Veum returns to the café, Stein tells him that Jonas' mother, Betty, lives in Solvik. According to Stein, Betty Kleiva is the local "femme fatale". He warns Veum:
“She’s the one with rooms for rent, if you saw the sign, but I’d better warn you if you were thinking of renting one: they say Betty eats men for breakfast. Widow twice over. The third escaped by getting divorced.”
Veum stays in town and discovers that emotions are running high in Solvik. One faction favors land-based salmon farming because it's better for the environment, but the financing fell through. The other faction supports Sunfjord Salmon, which owns the huge sea-based farms that create those "dead" fjords. This practice is also killing the wild salmon. It's no exaggeration to say that this issue is tearing the town apart.
Veum is drawn into this long-standing feud when Betty, his landlady, hires him to look into the death of her late partner, Klaus Krog. Betty's first two marriages ended, respectively, in death and divorce, so the town buzzed with gossip when the younger Krog moved in with her. Krog died falling off a mountain two years ago, which was ruled an accident by the police. Betty doesn't believe it; Krog was writing a book about the problems caused by fish farming. Lots of people in Solvik would have a reason for making sure the book never got published. Veum agrees to look into Krog's death. Given the title of the book, it's a decision I thought he might regret.
As Veum investigates the Krog case, the local body count rises and there is no shortage of suspects. The tension grows as Veum's investigation expands to include most of Solvik, past and present. The mystery has complexities that require Veum to use all of his tried-and-true PI skills to solve.
Staalesen has created a great character in Varg Veum: world-weary, bemused, perceptive, and too soft-hearted for his own good. I enjoyed his matter-of-fact narration, cynical tone, and keen awareness of humanity's imperfections. The detective noir elements, combined with the quintessential Nordic setting, were very compelling. The fictional town of Solvik is a character in itself, allowing Staalesen to seamlessly introduce the conflicts that surround sea-farmed salmon into the main plot. All in all, "Pursued by Death" was a treat. Now I need to catch up with the rest of the books in the series in order; only 13 to go!
Please buy/order "Pursued By Death" from your local independent bookstore, or go to Bookshop.org and order there!
