Once in a while you/we discover a “new” ….to us….author. I’ve posted recently about Gunnar Staalesen. He is a Scandinavian author ( Norway ) living in Bergen. I’ve found 5 of the 9 published books about the social worker/private detective character, Varg Veum. What makes this author different is his descriptions of the landscape, political, psychological and history of the country, Norway.

Staalesen’s books are to read through once to get the storyline ……………and then put them aside and reread them slowly to let the detailed descriptions of everything in and about the books sink in and enjoy! Definitely books to buy and keep.

He also wrote some detective stories before he started the Varg Veum series but I haven’t been able to find those yet. If anybody out there knows how to get copies of those books………I want to know: ralawson@knology.net

NOTE: “Varg” in Norwegian means “wolf”. The expression “varg i veum” means “persona non grata”, “outlaw” or “pariah”.  From the book cover….