Customer Reviews

The Writing on the Wall

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The story starts out with a bang. A seventy-year-old judge is found dead of a heart attack in a hotel room, wearing women's underwear. After that, the focus switches, and things move more slowly into a lot of frustrating investigation and interviewing.

Private investigator Varg Veum has been hired to look for a sixteen-year-old girl gone missing. Torild Skagestøl is from a good family, but as Veum looks into her habits and associates, he gradually uncovers her connection with a procurement service for clients who like very young teenage girls.

At first I felt I didn't know Varg Veum well enough to get caught up in his concerns. But his background does become clear after a while. He worked for many years in Child Welfare, and he has a particular aversion to seeing adults neglect and mistreat children.

A fifty-year-old sociologist type, Veum has a nice way of relating to his age-appropriate girlfriend. On the other hand, he's no pushover. He fights dirty when he has to.

Although Gunnar Staalesen's books are immensely popular internationally, they're just trickling through to the U.S as far as I can tell. I do feel that if I'd read the earlier books, I would be more tuned into the main character.

That said, the plot does pick up momentum if you stick with it, and Staalesen delivers a strong ending. So all in all, I'd recommend the book. It offers an interesting look at contemporary Norway, too.

This is a remarkable crime fiction novel. Very dense descriptions of locale, culture in Norway, personalities, problems of culture at large. This work is aimed at the way society takes advantage of women, and especially young women. This is a artful condemnation of the "old boy" culture and the ridiculous things men are allowed to do at the expense of 50 percent of our citizens. I loved this book. The start was strange and it took me a while to get fully involved but after 80 pages I was not going to leave these people and this story till I had the whole picture. I agree with the premise of the book and thank the author for sending it out to all of us.

Brian Oldham

Sorry, but I don't agree with the reviews posted here. This is just a dull, old-fashioned genre piece. The lead character is forgettable, the pace relentlessly slow, and, worst of all, I really didn't care to find out who done it. (BTW, am a big fan of a lot of new Scandinavian crime fiction).