Review: THE HUNTING DOGS, Jorn Lier Horst

• first published 2012 in Norwegian
  
• published in English by Sandstone Press 2014
• Translation by Anne Bruce
• ISBN 978-1-908737-43-2
• 323 pages
• source: my local library

Synopsis (Amazon)

Winner of The Glass Key (top Nordic novel 2013) and winner of The Golden Revolver (top Norwegian crime novel 2012).

Seventeen years ago, William Wisting led the investigation into one of Norway's most widely publicized criminal cases, when the young Cecilia Linde was killed. Now it is discovered that evidence was planted and the wrong man convicted. Wisting is suspended and the media smell blood. William Wisting has spent his life hunting criminals, but now it is he who is hunted. To discover what really happened he must work alone and under cover, assisted only by his journalist daughter Line.

Then another young woman disappears.

My take

THE HUNTING DOGS is the eighth title published in the William Wisting series, the third to be published in English. Wisting is aged 52, the widowed father of grown up twins, a carerr policeman who has risen through the ranks to become Chief Inspector in the Criminal Investigation Department of Larvik Police, just as the author was. The setting is Vestfold county on the south-west coast of Norway. Wisting has recently added to his duties as head of CID by becoming a visiting lecturer at the recently opened police College campus at Stavern. A lecture he had given recently had been about ethics and morality, a topic that becomes the central focus of this novel.

The man who was convicted of murdering Cecilia Linde seventeen years before has served his time and has been released. He has always protested his innocence and now a hot-shot lawyer is convinced he can prove that the police planted the crucial evidence that resulted in the conviction.

Wisting has always been convinced of Rudolf Haglund's guilt but now he also becomes convinced that the cigarette butt that was crucial in the case was planted by someone close to him on the investigation. He realises that he, like others on his team, did not question the evidence closely enough, because they, like hunting dogs, were only concerned with bringing their quarry down. The Assistant Chief of Police, who seventeen years ago was the police prosecutor, is quick to step back, and to point out that Wisting was in charge of the investigation, and therefore that he must bear the full responsibility if there has been police corruption. If guilt is proven there is a hefty prison sentence.

This is a very readable book, although I question the extensive involvement of Wisting's daughter Line and her team in the case. I'm not sure enough of my case to say that it wouldn't happen here.

I'd love to read more by this author. The book carries with in a strong sense of setting and reality, and the characters are finely drawn.

My rating: 5.0

I've also reviewed
4.7, DREGS
4.8, CLOSED FOR WINTER