Wolves in the Dark

In Staalesen’s stellar 19th novel set in Bergen, Norway (after 2016’s Where Roses Never Die), detective Varg Veum, who’s just starting to drag himself out of near-fatal depression four years after his partner Karin’s death, is arrested on monstrous charges: his computer contains evidence of his participation in an international child pornography ring, and unretouched photos surface that show him assaulting a desperately frightened pre-teen girl. After escaping from police custody, Veum painfully explores the “black holes” from those quasi-lost years of booze-saturated despair, hoping to clear his name. Veum has never before faced a case with so many loose threads, and, in untangling them, he comes to realize that neither politicians nor police officers take the plight of victimized refugee children seriously. Staalesen does a masterful job of exposing the worst of Norwegian society in this highly disturbing entry. Agent: Anne Catherine Eng, Gyldendal Agency (Norway). (Oct.)