Why a Booktrail?
2000s -Set in Bergen, this is a novel guide if you (excuse the pun) to a city with a main character who goes by the name of Varg – “Wolf-in-a-holy-place,” in old Norse – a perfect guide to this harsh cold environment.
Cold Hearts
What you need to know before your trail
A prostitute is concerned about the disappearance of one of her friends, Margrethe, or Maggi as she is known. On the night she had disappeared, Maggi had refused a trick from a curb crawler and had fled the car in terror. Another prostitute who effectively takes her place is badly beaten up.
Varg is tasked with finding out what happened to her and who on earth was in that car. His background as a social worker has given him a lot of experience in dealing with families of difficult circumstances – Maggi’s brother who has been in prison for many years has also now disappeared. Then a prostitute ends up dead.
Varg must quickly unravel the past to find the answers.
Travel Guide
The streets of Staalesen’s Bergen are not the ones you would want to walk down in real life. Varg Veum, the private investigator, takes the reader on a journey of exploitation, inherent threat and a cold hard journey towards the truth. And all in chillingly heart wrenching real time.
Even the protagonist name – Varg is threatening and cold – Varg means “Wolf” – His full name translates as “Wolf-in-a-holy-place,” in old Norse – an outsider in other words which describes any private eye on the outskirts of society in the perfect way. So, a perfect guide to this harsh cold environment.
Staalesen puts extreme importance on how a person’s surroundings and society can fail and mould a person. The city’s streets for example are as much of a character in the book as any of the people.
“Strandgaten is one of Bergen’s oldest streets. From one century to the next, it has wound its way from Torgallmenningen to Nordnes….”
You can basically take this book and allow it to guide yourself around Bergen itself
Strandgaten, is where the private eye’s office is situated for example and there is a now a life-size sculpture of the long-haired detective there for readers and newcomers to see the man for themselves. Talk about the book coming to life!
Another cultural viewpoint is just around the corner –
“A plaque on the wall beyond announced that Edvard Grieg’s childhood home was here..”
Edvard Grieg was a Norwegian composer and pianist who died in 1907 so the novel educates as well as evokes time and place!
Bergen’s most popular places to visit are listed in the Visit Bergen website. Of course here you will see a much more pleasant side to the city….http://www.visitbergen.com/
Streetview Maps
1) Strandveien - the Varg Veum statue
Standing there in the hotel doorway
Standing there in the hotel doorway
4) Nykirken - (New church)
Booktrailer Review
Susan:
Scandinavian crime fiction tends to concentrate on socio-political issues woven into the narrative and Cold Hearts is no exception. Norway’s welfare society comes under close scrutiny. This is a gritty, cold hard world that you now are entering but it’s an interesting one…
If you have not discovered Scandinavian crime fiction or think you have read them all, pick up Cold Hearts and you will see something you have never seen before.
The translation is by the excellent Don Bartlett. He is well known in Translator circles for having worked with Jo Nesbø and Per Petterson amongst others. It’s largely thanks to him that English readers can now read Cold Hearts and enter a world of the gritty realism of Norway’s backstreets.
The translator plays a crucial role in widening an author’s readership and Gunnar Staalesen, thanks to the skill of Don Bartlett can be assured that the sense and emotion of his book is deftly handled.
Where Next?
