#BlogTour – #BookReview of #PursuedByDeath by #GunnarStaaleson @OrendaBooks @RandomTTours #RandomThingsTours #VargVeum #NordicNoir

By calturner on August 23, 2024

I'm pleased to welcome you today to my stop on the blog tour for fantastic Nordic Noir thriller Pursued By Death (Varg Veum Series) by Gunnar Staalesen. Thank you to Anne Cater and Orenda Books for giving me the opportunity to read and review this wonderful book.

About the book:

When Varg Veum reads the newspaper headline 'YOUNG MAN MISSING', he realises he's seen the youth just a few days earlier – at a crossroads in the countryside, with his two friends. It turns out that the three were on their way to a demonstration against a commercial fish-farming facility in the tiny village of Solvik, north of Bergen.
Varg heads to Solvik, initially out of curiosity, but when he chances upon a dead body in the sea, he's pulled into a dark and complex web of secrets, feuds and jealousies.

Is the body he's found connected to the death of a journalist who was digging into the fish farm's operations two years earlier? And does either incident have something to do with the competition between the two powerful families that dominate Solvik's salmon-farming industry?

Or are the deaths the actions of the 'Village Beast' – the brutal small-town justice meted out by rural communities in this part of the world.

Shocking, timely and full of breathtaking twists and turns, Pursued by Death reaffirms Gunnar Staalesen as one of the world's greatest crime writers.

About the author:

Granite Noir fest 2017. Gunnar Staalesen.

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) and 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.

Translated by Don Bartlett.

Don Bartlett 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 Gunnar Staalesen's Varg Veum series: We Shall Inherit the Wind, Wolves in the Dark and the Petrona award-winning Where Roses Never Die.

He also translated Faithless, the previous book in Kjell Ola Dahl's Oslo Detective series for Orenda Books. He lives with his family in a village in Norfolk.

My Review:

Pursued By Death by Gunnar Staalesen is the latest instalment in his outstanding Varg Veum series of books. Available for the first time in English, it is superbly translated as always by Don Bartlett and, although part of a long running series, reads incredibly well as a standalone.

This time Varg finds himself investigating the disappearance of a young man who has gone missing after taking part in a demonstration against a commercial fish farming facility in the tiny village of Solvik. But then, upon the discovery of a dead body in the sea and its possible connection with a death two years earlier, things start to become even more dark and complicated for Varg, as he is pulled into a dark and complex web of secrets, feuds and jealousies...

Varg digs even deeper beneath the surface, with the investigation taking an even more sinister turn as links between two feuding families start to emerge. Are the deaths connected to the two families? Or is it possible that they are the actions of the 'Village Beast' – the violent vigilante justice meted out by the people of the local community?

What follows is a brilliant and complex thriller, with the kind of twists and turns that really do keep you guessing. A tense and at times shocking slow burn of a novel, Pursued By Death is yet another outstanding addition to a series that really does keep on going from strength to strength.

Nordic Noir has become one of my favourite genres to read in recent years and this one is no exception. Gunnar Staaleson's writing is superb as he draws you into the story from the outset, with Don Bartlett's excellent translation bringing what is a tense and immersive thriller oh so vividly to life.

As this series of books has only recently been translated into english and was written some time ago, there has always been a retro feel to them which has been quite refreshing. Up to now, Varg has had to rely on old school detective work, with no modern technology other than a very basic mobile phone to be seen. But, in Pursued By Death, the passing of time and the progression of technology is starting to make itself known, with Varg slowly beginning to come to grips with a new and alien way of policing - a development that is going to be so interesting to see as the series progresses!

Gunnar Staalesen's writing is as stunning as always and Pursued By Death is an intelligent and stylish thriller that really did keep me on my toes from beginning to end. I love the complicated but likeable character of Varg Veum more and more with every book and look forward to seeing even more of him in the future.

Pursued By Death is Nordic Noir fiction at its finest and is a book that I would highly recommend.

Pursued By Death by Gunnar Staalesen is available to purchase now: