Face to Face

When a dead man appears in his waiting room, Bergen PI Varg Veum finds himself investigating a controversial death from fourteen years earlier. The internationally bestselling Varg Veum series, by one of the fathers of Nordic Noir, continues…

**Now a major TV series**

`As searing and gripping as they come´ New York Times

`One of my very favourite Scandinavian authors´ Ian Rankin

`The Norwegian Chandler´ Jo Nesbø

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'A dead man was sitting in my waiting-room.'

So begins another unsettling case for Bergen private detective, Varg Veum.

The identity of the dead man soon becomes clear. He had come to see Veum about a case of his own, one rooted in a death on the Møre coast fifteen years earlier. A woman walked into the sea and never returned. The verdict was suicide, but not everyone believed it.

As Veum follows the trail his silent visitor left behind, the investigation leads back to a radical student collective in Bergen in the 1970s, where political loyalties, personal rivalries and old decisions still cast long shadows. Someone has gone to great lengths to keep that past concealed, and the price of digging too deep has already proved fatal.

As Veum closes in on what happened to the missing woman, can he expose her killer before he becomes the next victim?

For readers who love Henning Mankell, Jo Nesbø, Jorn Lier Horst, Harlan Coben and Jussi Adler-Olsen.

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Praise for the Varg Veum series

'Chilling and perilous – all told in a pleasingly dry style' Sunday Times

`Every inch the equal of his Nordic confreres Henning Mankell and Jo Nesbø´ Independent

'There is a world-weary existential sadness that hangs over his central detective. The prose is stripped back and simple … deep emotion bubbling under the surface – the real turmoil of the characters' lives just under the surface for the reader to intuit, rather than have it spelled out for them' Doug Johnstone, The Big Issue

`Staalesen continually reminds us he is one of the finest of Nordic novelists´ Financial Times

'An upmarket Philip Marlowe' Maxim Jakubowski

'Among the most popular Norwegian crime writers' Observer

'In the best tradition of sleuthery' The Times

'Not many books hook you in the first chapter – this one did, and never let go!' Mari Hannah

`There are only two other writers that I know of have achieved the depth of insight in detective writing that Staalesen has: Chandler, and Ross MacDonald …´ Mystery Tribune

`Employs Chandleresque similes with a Nordic Noir twist … simply superb´ Wall Street Journal

`Masterful pacing´ Publishers Weekly

`The Varg Veum series is more concerned with character and motivation than spectacle, and it's in the quieter scenes that the real drama lies´ Herald Scotland