Pursued by Death

When Bergen PI Varg Veum becomes involved in the disappearance of a young activist, he comes up against one village's particular brand of justice ... The international bestselling, critically acclaimed Varg Veum series returns... `As searing and gripping as they come´ New York Times `One of my very favourite Scandinavian authors´ Ian Rankin `The Norwegian Chandler´ Jo Nesbø When Varg Veum reads the newspaper headline 'YOUNG MAN MISSING', he realises he's seen the youth just a few days earlier - at a crossroads in the countryside, with his two friends. It turns out that the three were on their way to a demonstration against a commercial fish-farming facility in the tiny village of Solvik, north of Bergen. Varg heads to Solvik, initially out of curiosity, but when he chances upon a dead body in the sea, he's pulled into a dark and complex web of secrets, feuds and jealousies. Is the body he's found connected to the death of a journalist who was digging into the fish farm's operations two years earlier? And does either incident have something to do with the competition between the two powerful families that dominate Solvik's salmon-farming industry? Or are the deaths the actions of the 'Village Beast' - the brutal small-town justice meted out by rural communities in this part of the world. Shocking, timely and full of breathtaking twists and turns, Pursued by Death reaffirms Gunnar Staalesen as one of the world's greatest crime writers.

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.