A(nother) Year of Orenda – We Shall Inherit The Wind by Gunnar Staalesen

Today Mandie starts her journey into the world of Varg Veum with We Shall Inherit The Wind by Gunnar Staalesen. I really enjoyed catching up with the series last year and you can find my review right here. Here’s what the book is all about:

About the Book

1998. Varg Veum sits by the hospital bedside of his long-term girlfriend Karin, whose life-threatening injuries provide a deeply painful reminder of the mistakes he’s made. Investigating the seemingly innocent disappearance of a wind-farm inspector, Varg Veum is thrust into one of the most challenging cases of his career, riddled with conflicts, environmental terrorism, religious fanaticism, unsolved mysteries and dubious business ethics. Then, in one of the most heart-stopping scenes in crime fiction, the first body appears…

A chilling, timeless story of love, revenge and desire, We Shall Inherit the Wind deftly weaves contemporary issues with a stunning plot that will leave you gripped to the final page. This is Staalesen at his most thrilling, thought-provoking best.

Mandie’s Thoughts

We Shall Inherit the Wind opens with Varg Veum at the bedside of his partner Karin, and you can feel the pain that he is in as he watches her slowly decline. As the book progresses, we find out the events that led up to the opening scene and why he is blaming himself for the situation. 

When Varg Veum is asked to look into the disappearance of Mons Mæland you can guarantee what he became involved in was not what he expected. This became anything but a simple missing person’s case. As he found himself in the middle of business disagreements, family secrets and environmental activists Varg started to regret ever agreeing to take on the case in the first place.

Not having read anything by Gunnar Staalesen before, I soon found that I couldn’t put this book down. As I turned each page I wanted to know more, the who and the why, whilst at the same time savouring the journey and the investigation. Veum is far from perfect but he is like a dog with a bone, even when the case looks like it is closed, he has to get to the bottom of the little things that niggle him, the ones that just don’t sit quite right. It is this that probably made me like him so much. As we are taken through the book, the descriptions of the location give the reader a true feeling of Norway and how some of it can be remote and quite stark (sounds like my kind of perfect).

This is not a fast-paced book, but it does suit the investigation at hand. Veum does not use a great deal of modern technology in his business, relying on more old-fashioned methods that befit his age and personality. Just as you think you know what the outcome will be, you are thrown down a new trail until you ultimately get to the end and the book comes back to what you witness at the start with Varg at the bedside of Karin.

Now that I have started this series I am looking forward to catching up with the rest of them as I cant wait to experience the next case that Varg Veum takes on and how he handles whatever is thrown in his path.

About the Author

One of the fathers of the Nordic Noir genre, 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-three titles, which have been published in twenty-six countries and sold over five million copies. Twelve film adaptations of his Varg Veum crime novels have appeared since 2007, starring the popular Norwegian actor Trond Epsen Seim, and a further series is currently being filmed. Staalesen, who has won three Golden Pistols (including the Prize of Honour) and the Petrona Award, and been shortlisted for the CWA Dagger, lives in Bergen with his wife.

Books by Gunnar Staalesen