When It Grows Dark

Horst’s excellent sixth William Wisting mystery to appear in English (after Ordeal) returns to the chief inspector’s early career in between his present-day reflections on his 30-plus years of service in Larvik, a small town in Norway’s southwest Vestfold county. As Wisting prepares to welcome trainee police officers, he receives a letter that plunges him and his students back into a nearly century-old cold case. Flash back to 1983. Wisting, a recently qualified uniformed police officer, is a new father to twins Line and Thomas and a devoted husband to Ingrid, the exemplary wife he will lose to illness years later. Horst minutely chronicles young Wisting’s private investigation into a major unsolved 1925 theft, undertaken after more experienced cops push him off a violent robbery case. Wisting learns to trust his ability to combine logic and intuition as he idealistically sets out to make a better world. This prequel is a fine starting place for newcomers. (Sept.)