Blog Tour: Wolves in the Dark (Gunnar Staalesen) @OrendaBooks

Welcome to my stop on the Wolves in the Dark, by Gunnar Staalesen, blog tour! Today, I have a review for you!

I was incredibly hesitant when I decided to read this novel, as it is actually the twenty- first novel in the Varg Veum series! I usually like to read a series from the beginning so I get to really know the character. This book was easily read as a standalone, but I wish I had read others in the series so I had more background. Varg Veum was very complex and well written; I wanted to know more about him!

The novel opens with Veum answering the door to police. They are bringing him to the station due to content found on his computer. Finding out that the content is child pornography and the police are operating under the assumption he belongs to a paedophilia ring, Veum desperately begins to search into his past to find out who could have framed him.

As mentioned, Veum was a very complex character. The ultimate anti-hero type, he is the type of character that gets under your skin. Abrupt, damaged and dark, Staalesen uses his character centred narrative technique to drive the plot and hook the reader. And let me tell you, this worked. I was on the edge of my seat trying to figure out how Veum was going to get out of this mess and hoping there would be no truth to it.  Even though it was my first experience with this protagonist, I immediately felt connected to him.

However, I did find the number of secondary characters to be a little confusing at times, and, perhaps, this was because I was unfamiliar with any reoccurring characters or their relationships from the previous novels.   I had to read back and cross reference some of the names and try to figure out how they were connected.  This is, of course, a small complaint.

Wolves in the Dark ended on quite the cliffhanger, so I’ll be eagerly anticipating the next book in the series.

I feel that any readers who relish in Scandinavian crime fiction or old school detective style novels will love this one!

Thanks to Orenda and the author for a copy of this novel; it was my pleasure to provide an honest review.