PI Varg Veum has returned to duty following a stint in rehab, but his new composure and resolution are soon threatened when three complex crimes land on his desk.
A man is found dead in an elite swimming pool. A young woman has gone missing. Most chillingly, Veum is asked to investigate the ‘Camilla Case’: an eight-year-old cold case involving the disappearance of a little girl, who was never found.
As the threads of these three apparently unrelated cases come together, against the backdrop of a series of shocking environmental crimes, Veum faces the most challenging, traumatic investigation of his career.
A stunning, sophisticated, tension-packed thriller – the darkest of hardboiled Nordic Noir – from one of Norway’s most acclaimed crime writers.
Bitter Flowers is published in just a few day on 21st January by Orenda Books.
My Review
This is the second Varg Veum book that I've read after Wolves at the Door nearly two years ago. I've still not caught up with the series (hangs head in shame) but this worked perfectly as a standalone.
Private Investigator Varg Veum is just coming back to work after some problems with alcohol and a short stay in rehab. His physiotherapist from the rehab centre has found him a job watching a house whilst the owners are away. She takes him to show him around but things take a sinister turn whilst they are there. Initially investigating a murder and a missing person Veum focuses on the case of a young girl who went missing several years ago. But there seem to be links in that case to both the others ...
Varg Veum is an easy man to like, for me, anyway. He's a decent man, who has a keen sense of right and wrong and works hard to do the best he can. But we learn about his flaws, his previous reliance on alcohol, which was perhaps explored in a previous book, and his ongoing road to recovery. He has a generally good relationship with the police but there was definitely a sense that they just tolerated him sometimes!
The storyline is complex and involving with three threads running through it, tied in with a case of what seem to be environmental crimes. There are a lot of characters to keep track of, something I struggled with early on. A couple stood out for me: Siv, because her story was so sad but she was so richly described and provided some of the most moving moments, and Silje, who is only in it very, very briefly but touched me. All the characters, though, are richly drawn and easy to imagine. The denouement, reminiscent of a Hercule Poirot moment (as mentioned in the book) is terrific but unexpectedly sad.
But what really made this book for me was Staalesen's writing, with thanks to Don Bartlett for his excellent translation. Gunnar Staalesen's descriptive words are beautiful and evocative whether he's talking about looking out to sea, a hot day in the city, even Veum's increasing reliance on alcohol. There's a moment where two characters are lovemaking after taking a walk together: 'We...could go on long rambles over each other's terrain, smell the summer scents on our skin, hide our faces in moist miss and snake out cravings in new springs.' Loved that, beautiful. And the book is full of writing like that, I could give you so many examples but better you read them for yourselves. One wee one, though, that made me smile was '...lines of terraced houses, so new they smelt of mortgages...'.
Bitter Flowers is a complex, descriptive and beautifully written tale of family drama and terrible secrets. Varg Veum is at the centre of it but he is surrounded by a huge cast of finely drawn supporting characters. I really enjoyed it.
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 in 2019. He lives with his wife in Bergen.
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