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

Review: CLOSED FOR WINTER, Jorn Lier Horst

• first published in 2011
  
• translated from Norwegian into English by Ann Bruce 2013 and published by Sandstone Press
• #7 in the William Wisting series, second to be translated into English
• ISBN 978-1-908737-49-6
• 321 pages
• source: my local library
• Winner of Norway's Booksellers' Prize 2012

Synopsis  (publisher)

Ove Bakkerud, newly separated and extremely disillusioned, is looking forward to a final quiet weekend at his summer home before closing for winter but, when the tourists leave, less welcome visitors arrive. Bakkerud’s cottage is ransacked by burglars and next door he discovers the body of a man who has been beaten to death.

Police Inspector William Wisting has witnessed grotesque murders before, but the desperation he sees in this latest murder is something new. Against his wishes, his daughter Line decides to stay in one of the summer cottages at the mouth of the fjord. Wisting’s unease does not diminish when they discover several more corpses on the deserted archipelago. Meanwhile, dead birds are dropping from the sky.

My Take

There is a nice introduction to William Wisting at the beginning of this novel, giving the reader a description of the setting, and Wisting's personal history. The foreword also points out how Jorn Lier Horst draws on his own deep experience of police procedures and processes in these novels, resulting in a strong sense of these novels being grounded in reality.

CLOSED FOR WINTER brings two different types of crime together: those who want to take advantage of Norway's wealth by burglarising summer cottages now closed up for winter, and drug runners bringing cocaine into Norway and using it as a base for money laundering.

Wisting has recently returned from sick leave, a breakdown, worn down by thirty years of increasingly complex and disillusioning police work. There are times when he wonders if he has returned too soon.  This seems to lead quite naturally into reflection by the author into the state of Norwegian society, and how it compares with its near neighbours.

A very satisfying read.

My rating: 4.8

I've also reviewed
4.7, DREGS

About the Author

Jorn Lier Horst was born in 1970, in Bamble, Telemark, Norway. He has worked as a policeman in Larvik since 1995. His debut novel in 2004, Key Witness, was based on a true murder story. The William Wisting novel series has been extremely successful in his native Norway as well as Germany and the Netherlands. DREGS was his first book published in English. In 2013 the next novel in this series, The Hunting Dogs, won both the prestigious Golden Revolver, for best Norwegian crime, and The Glass Key. See more

Review: DREGS, Jorn Lier Horst

• Format: Kindle (Amazon)
• File Size: 541 KB
• Publisher: Sandstone Press (August 12, 2011), translated from Norwegian by Anne Bruce
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services
• Language: English
• ASIN: B0076M4Q3M
• Source: I bought it

Synopsis (Amazon)

Meet Chief Inspector William Wisting, Head of CID in Larvik, Norway, the latest unforgettable import from Scandinavian crime fiction. An experienced policeman who is familiar with the dark side of human nature, he lives in challenging times for the Norwegian police force, meeting them with integrity and humanity, and a fragile belief that he can play a part in creating a better world. A police report of a shoe containing a severed foot washed up on the sand introduces CI William Wisting. Soon a second is washed up, but it is another left. Has there been some kind of terrible accident at sea?

My Take

An excellent Norwegian police procedural, #6 in the William Wisting series, but the first to be translated into English, that has me grinding my teeth that there are not more available.

The idea of the appearance of using specific body parts, in this case left feet, washing up on beaches one after another, is not a new one but definitely a good hook into a murder mystery.

William Wisting, Chief Inspector of Police, is at burn out point, and at the beginning of the novel we meet him as he leaves the doctor's surgery where he has had some blood tests. He believes that crime in Norway is beginning to pay, growing rather than decreasing, and that none of the counter measures are effective deterrents. His daughter Lina is a journalist writing an article on the effects of long prison sentences on criminals, particularly those who have committed murder. There is inevitably an overlap between elements of her father's new case, and the interviews with murderers that she has set up.

As the number of left feet being washed up on nearby shorelines reaches 3, the police establish a link between one of them and an old man who disappeared from a nursing home 9 months earlier. But three elderly men disappeared without trace at that time, and the story is made more complex by the fact two women also disappeared: one a schizophrenic disappeared 9 months ago, and one, more recently, also from the nursing home.

A very engaging read, with good strong characters.

My rating: 4.7

Check this news report from 2008

About the Author

Jorn Lier Horst was born in 1970, in Bamble, Telemark, Norway. He has worked as a policeman in Larvik since 1995. His debut novel in 2004, Key Witness, was based on a true murder story. The William Wisting novel series has been extremely successful in his native Norway as well as Germany and the Netherlands. Dregs is his first book published in English.