From the PR: “Bergen Private Investigator Varg Veum is perplexed when two wildly different cases cross his desk at the same time. A lawyer, anxious to protect her privacy, asks Varg to find her sister, who has disappeared with her husband, seemingly without trace, while a ship carrying unknown cargo is heading towards the Norwegian coast, and the authorities need answers.

Varg immerses himself in the investigations, and it becomes clear that the two cases are linked, and have unsettling – and increasingly uncanny – similarities to events that took place thirty-six years earlier, when a woman and her saxophonist lover drove their car off a cliff, in an apparent double suicide.

As Varg is drawn into a complex case involving star-crossed lovers, toxic waste and illegal immigrants, history seems determined to repeat itself in perfect detail … and at terrifying cost…”

There are few reading pleasures like sitting down with a new Varg Veum novel but then there are few writers as good as Gunnar Staalesen. Since reading We Shall Inherit the Wind back in 2015 Staalesen has become one of my favourite writers and a new Varg Veum novel from Norway’s finest is always reason to get excited.

Like all good pleasures, the reading of a new Staalesen novel is something to be savoured. The problem is that it’s also so bloody good and addictive that it’s usually impossible to put down. Mirror Image builds up momentum so masterfully, places just enough hooks in each chapter and leads the reader from ‘wait, what?’ to ‘hang on, but that means…’ so compellingly that addictive isn’t the word and before you know it you’re knee deep in snow peering through a cabin window and on your way to a denouement that’ll leave your jaw open. Oh, and Mirror Image may be the most stunning of those yet.

There’s a quiet poetry in reading a novel set in 1993 that works perfectly with Varg’s style. I’ve said before that Staalesen’s lone wolf is neither a Reacher or Harry Hole, there are no explosive set pieces here nor does our hero deliver any violent kicks to the kidney that ‘would have sent a football out of the stadium.’ Instead, Veum tracks his clues determinedly, putting in the leg work and the miles as he puts the pieces together. In 1993, devoid of cell phones to ping locations from (though Varg does revel having such a then-new device) or the ability to reach someone in an instant with a text, Mirror Image moves to a different pace. It’s joyous to sense the work and miles – numerous early morning starts and ferry crossings across those fjords to islands not yet reached by bridge – involved as Veum doggedly chases the truth across a geographical distance that manages to mirror the chronological distance involved as he travels back and forth across both the country and decades to unravel the complexities of his case.

Speaking of mirroring… how about the symmetry in the events of 1957 affecting the central characters of Varg’s current case just as the events of his previous investigation affect his current life?

There’s a huge amount to enjoy in Mirror Image. From the characters – both familiar and new – to the perfectly detailed landscapes. Staalesen’s style and prose remains that of a master, succinct yet evocative with more than a crackle of charm and humour all clearly written by an author that takes delight in the form. The plot is as wonderfully crafted and multifaceted as you’d expect from a Varg Veum novel – just when you think the pieces are starting to come together Staalesen can subtly work in a new angle that brings increasing layers into play and still find a way to seamlessly bind them into one.

The only bad thing about Mirror Image is that it must draw to a close. Though that close, again, is possibly the finest ending to a Varg novel to date.

Mirror Image is the ninth Varg Veum novel in my collection (of a published nineteen with) and yet Staaelesen still manages to bring something new to the character with every instalment, ensuring that Varg remains both familiar to readers but compelling enough to want another novel straight after finishing, all the while continuing to set a high benchmark for both Nordic Noir and fiction as a whole.

My thanks, as always, to Karen at Orenda Books for my copy of Mirror Image and for all the work she’s done in championing these books in English, my bookshelf would be a poorer place without them.