Haven’t read any Scandinavian crime novels lately? No problem, they’re getting worse as the serious authors’ works run dry and they start shoving second-rate writers in your face. But hey, listen up, Jorn Lier Horst’s book “Closed for Winter” won Norway’s most prestigious literary award in 2011. Does that mean anything? Seems like it only means these Fjordlings are completely handing out their prestigious awards to utterly average books…
You read it, you read it, and you’re just about to mark it as boring as hell, but then you realize that somehow, a few pages in, you’re getting into it. Although not too twisty, it focuses more on depicting the nitty-gritty police work, and it specifically ensures that nothing happens to make you bite your nails to the quick with excitement, yet it’s complex enough to keep you from putting it down.
Horst’s crime novel is sometimes a bit on the nose, and the occasional clumsy sentence slips in, but there’s no overwrought soul-searching and tiresome lamenting, which are fundamental ingredients of Scandinavian crime novels. It’s just regular folks investigating an average, and later somewhat more significant, case.
It also helps that Jorn Lier Horst’s detective, Wisting, is a likable average guy who hasn’t become jaded by his work, remaining empathetic and kind-hearted, just like you and me – and this is quite a refreshing exception among all the cynical, alcoholic, and manic-depressive detectives. You might be skeptical now, but Wisting’s girlfriend and daughter are also completely normal people whom you’d welcome into your own family – Kurt Wallander and Erlendur detectives (see: Arnaldur Indridason: Reykjavik Nights) from Sweden and Iceland are undoubtedly snarling at them with jealousy-twisted faces.
It’s also certain that by about halfway through „Closed for Winter”, you’ll figure out who the mole is. I even guessed the killer a few chapters before the end, and I’m not one to usually figure these things out. And with that, I just want to point out that Horst skillfully avoids leaving you dumbfounded by the solution.
7/10
Closed for Winter (William Wisting #7) by Jørn Lier Horst
321 pages, Mass Market Paperback
Published in 2013 by Sandstone Press