Thanks to the lovely people at Penguin Michael Joseph for my copy of ‘The Night Man’ by Jorn Lier Horst. I was delighted to win this in a giveaway but – as always – opinions are entirely my own.
I love Scandinavian crime fiction and was intrigued by this – especially when I saw that it has been made into a major TV series which will be my next port of call! I came to this expecting a dark, tense thriller and wasn’t at all disappointed.
The story opens with the gruesome discovery of a severed head on a stake in the centre of a small town called Larvik in Norway. Police Inspector William Wisting is called in to investigate, but the media are also circling as they seek out a sensational story – and the media pack are led by Wisting’s own daughter, Line. When a second body is recovered from a lake, Wisting is forced to confront the fact that Larvik has been infiltrated by a dangerous and ruthless criminal network…
This is the latest instalment in the Wisting series, but the first I’ve read – I don’t think reading the other books before this is essential to enjoying this one. It works as a standalone and (as far as I can tell) there aren’t too many recurrent central characters to get your head around.
My main observation was that – wow – this man can write tension. The opening scene instantly put me on edge and that’s pretty much where I stayed! Line’s involvement also added to this as she seemed to happily blunder into situations that could be treacherous in pursuit of her story. However, she is so much more than a young woman in peril (thank goodness!) and added a lot to the investigation too.
I loved that the crime scenes yielded so few clues – I’m used to a lot of forensic crime novels – as it was refreshing to read about Wisting starting with so few leads to go on. This meant that Wisting had to work on connecting some pretty disparate events and ideas, something that was cleverly done.
Although I really liked Line’s part of the story, I did wonder at the authenticity of a police officer being so close to a journalist. I’m sure it happens in real life as there are leaks about crimes all the time, but it did feel a bit awkward for Line to be digging around police business. It really works for the story, but I don’t know whether Larvik’s police department would really appreciate it in reality!
Overall, this is a satisfying slice of Nordic Noir – I’d definitely be interested in reading more of the series and checking out the TV series to see if William Wisting looks like I imagine! As anticipated, it does deal with some dark topics, but I didn’t find it too grim – just sad when the backgrounds of the victims were investigated. If you like tightly-plotted Scandinavian crime fiction, there’s much to enjoy here.
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