Cold Hearts

September 9, 2013
Like The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, this entry in Staalesen’s long-running Norwegian crime series featuring Bergen detective Varg Veum (Consorts of Death, etc.) examines issues of class prejudice, misplaced trust, and self-righteous exploitation. Prostitute Hege Jensen, a former schoolmate of Veum’s son, hires the aging PI to find her friend and fellow prostitute, Maggi Monsen, who disappeared one night after turning down a customer. Veum discovers that Maggie was plagued by predatory pimps and potentially murderous johns, but Maggie’s sad tale proves as nothing compared to the harm done by well-intentioned busybodies whose interventions transform terrible situations into ones unimaginably worse. Under pressure, Veum can skillfully dole out violence, but the essentially humane detective prefers methods that involve dialogue and deduction, investigation and intellect—a welcome contrast to many in his line of work.

Starred review from November 1, 2013
Social worker turned private investigator Varg Veum is contemplating how he'll get enough business to get through the slow winter season in Bergen, Norway. Then Hege, a former classmate of Veum's son, hires the PI to find a missing friend. Both girls are prostitutes, and Hege is convinced that the police won't investigate Maggi's disappearance. Veum, however, knows the high-stakes world of the red-light district makes finding Maggi imperative, and he's soon knee deep in her life's unpleasantries. He begins exploring multiple avenues: the prostitute's menacing pimp, the pair of violent johns she refused, and the minefield of her troubled childhood. When bodies begin stacking up with connections to all three scenarios, Veum is certain Maggi's disappearance is related, but each clue creates a new layer of questions. Cold Hearts is top-tier Scandinavian crime fiction; straightforward dialogue drives the plot, and tough but sympathetic Veum is equally comfortable in a fistfight, probing for secrets behind Bergen's closed doors, or examining crime's sociological roots. Those attracted to the grudgingly humanistic investigators created by Michael Connelly, Jo Nesb, Anne Holt, and Ken Bruen will embrace Varg Veum. Although this novel can stand alone, some American readers may be frustrated by having to read the series out of order; this is the fourteenth of 20 Varg Veum novels, but only the third released in the U.S.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)