A Question of Guilt (William Wisting: The Cold Case Quartet Book Four) by Jørn Lier Horst.
Translated by Anne Bruce.
Published in paperback 3rd March 2022 by Penguin Michael Joseph.
From the cover of the book:
In 1999, seventeen-year-old Tone Vaterland was killed on her way home from work.
The police - desperate for a quick conviction - deemed the investigation an open-and-shut case and sent her embittered ex-boyfriend, Danny Momrak, down for murder. Her family was able to grieve. The public felt justice had been done. The streets were safe again.
But twenty years later, William Wisting receives an anonymous letter suggesting that the wrong man was convicted, and worse yet: the real murderer is still out there.
Thrown into a terrifying race against time, Wisting must find the sender and catch the real killer before they strike again. But nothing is as it seems. And as Wisting disappears further into a dark past of secrets, lies and murder, his own life is threatened . . .
Can he find Tone's true killer before it's too late?
JØRN LIER HORST worked as a police officer and head of investigations before becoming a full-time writer and has established himself as one of the most successful authors to come out of Scandinavia. His books have sold over two million copies in his native Norway alone and he's published in twenty-six languages.
The Wisting series, produced by the team behind Wallander and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, was a hit BBC series in 2019 with a second series due to air soon.
Anne Bruce studied Norwegian and English at the University of Glasgow and now lives on the Isle of Arran, Scotland. She has translated a number of crime novels by Anne Holt and Jorn Lier Horst, including the Petrona-Prize-winning The Caveman and When It Grows Dark, which was longlisted for the CWA International Dagger in 2017.
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Police Investigator William Wisting is settling into his summer holiday, taking stock of where life has brought him now he is a grandfather and retirement may be beckoning in the not too distant future. His planned period of relaxation is disrupted by the arrival of an anonymous note in his mailbox that refers to a murder investigation from twenty years ago, in which nineteen-year old Tone Varterland was killed on her way home from work.
As more strange notes follow, Wisting starts to look into the Varterland case and finds that although all clues pointed to the guilt of her spurned boyfriend Danny Momrak, who was convicted and sent down for a long prison sentence, there were leads which were not fully investigated - one of which links to an old case of his own in which a different man was convicted of a very similar crime. Was the wrong man found guilty of Tone Varterland's murder all those years ago, and is the real killer still out there, ready to kill again?
If you know anything at all about Jørn Lier Horst's excellent Nordic crime Wisting books, or the magnificent TV drama based upon them, then you will know he likes to build glorious tension and absolutely cracking characterisation into his stories, while taking you all round the highways, byways, and houses of Norway... and sometimes beyond - and this latest addition to the series is no exception.
Whether working on a cold case, or attempting to find leads in a new one, both of which feature nicely in this latest book, Wisting is always called upon to use all his considerable crime solving experience, his deep wisdom of human nature, and his ineffable ability to sniff out when something does not feel right, to get to the bottom of what is going on - and Lier Horst keeps him very busy indeed here, bringing in an intriguing cast of characters to advance the plot and throw a few inevitable spanners in the works along the way. He also works in detailed, picture perfect descriptions of the Norwegian landscape and weather that build atmosphere so well that you can almost taste the tang of the sea, smell the brooding forest, and feel yourself right there at Wisting's side as puts the pieces of more than one mystery together.
This is a Wisting who is feeling his years, suffering from aches, pains and health issues that come with age, but when it comes to it his instincts are as trusty as ever. He now takes on the role of mentor too, passing on his sage advice and offering a guiding hand to his younger colleagues, while also marvelling at their ingenuity, and at more than one point he is forced to confront how the nature of police work has changed over the course of his career. It's also great to see a few old faces turning up in this story, including the FBI investigator Maggie Griffin.
I love how it is impossible to work out exactly who is the guilty party in the twisty Wisting stories until the very end, and you come to suspect almost everyone of doing dirty deeds until the clues and hard police graft serve to gradually discard the multiple red herrings, and bring the criminals to justice with the most satisfying of endings. Packed with suspense, intrigue, mystery, and gritty forensic evidence to be sifted, this is clever stuff that keeps you guessing in the most entertaining of ways.
Another absolute stonking winner from Lier Horst to keep lovers of the very best of Scandinavian crime noir extremely happy indeed. This is a lap-it-up-in-one-delicious-sitting book, and it kept me spellbound from start to finish!
A Question of Guilt is available to buy now in hardcover, paperback and ebook formats.
Thank you to Penguin Michael Joseph for sending me a paperback copy of this book in return for an honest review, and for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.
About the author:
The Wisting series, produced by the team behind Wallander and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, was a hit BBC series in 2019 with a second series due to air soon.
About the translator:
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