(This book has so far only been published in England, not in the US.) At the start of this crime fiction novel by Norwegian writer Gunnar Staalesen, his main character, private eye Varg Veum, receives a phone call from the past. 
The call from the past that Veum receives is actually a phone call from an old girlfriend. She brings up a name from Veum’s past – Johnny Boy. Johnny was a referral case that Varg worked on in his previous life as a social worker. He was a small boy, only two years old, in a violent family who needed protection. Then, a few years later, when Johnny was six, Veum met him again, this time at the scene of a murder. Time after time little Jonny Boy was in trouble, and suspected of killing people. Death and mayhem seems almost to be following in his footsteps. And now the ex-girlfriend informs Veum that Johnny Boy seeks vengeance on all those who failed him. Veum apparently is high on that list. For the severely traumatized Johnny who has been involved in three murders it is now time to fight back.
Varg Veum senses that in order to stop Johnny, it is important to gain a deeper understanding of the murders that have shaped Johnny and placed him in the corner he now is trapped in.
Staalesen in an interesting author. He has been extremely productive, and has written a long list of books (only four have so far been translated into English), crime fiction, other fiction books, several plays, and other works. His crime books are strongly inspired by hardboiled American detective fiction. He cites Raymond Chandler as his prime inspiration. And, indeed, there is much that is Chandler-esque in Staalesen’s books, and much Philip Marlowe in Varg Veum. But Staalesen’s style is still unique, a kind of Chandler-inspired McBain-like crime fiction with a social conscience. The plots are complicated and well composed – in The Consorts of Death we revisit events taking place in 1839, 1970, 1974, 1984 and 1995, and Veum skillfully untangles the ways in which the past has a bearing on the present.
The Consorts of Death (orig. title Dødens drabanter) is somewhat dark – or realist, socially critical and empathic – and raises more questions than it answers. Veum’s world is a world full of shades of grey, and while he solves the mystery in the book, the book does not answer the questions. The Consorts of Death is a fine, relatively noir book, and one of the best in the Varg Veum series, and the translation by Don Bartlett seems to me to be superb. It is a very exciting novel with a surprising ending. An excellent read!
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