Cultural City Bergen 2000, Bergen Public Library

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Reviews
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(Please note: Both Gunnar Staalesen's "At Night all Wolves are Grey" and
"Yours Until Death" are available in English.)

Bergens Tidende 23.10.1997 Eiliv Eide "1900 Morgenrød" ("1900 Sunrise") "...But the strong epic drive, the lushness, the large, colourful, well-organised cast of characters, the vivid glimpses of Bergen and its surroundings two generations previous, the tension in the account of a murder and its many implications, and last but not least the sociological slant, emphasizing class divisions in a fragmented community, all this will entice many to immerse themselves in this ample novel..."	Bergens Tidende 1985 Eiliv Eide "Hekseringen" ("The witch ring") "...The portrayal of the social milieu is clearly one of Staalesen's strengths - for example the blackmail novel which takes place in Munkebotn (we see the nature before us). Conversation - dialogue - is another of his strong sides. The dialogue is terse, pointed and action-oriented. But Staalesen can also tell a story; the suspense is effectively built up and resolved...."
Aftenposten 6.9. 1995 Terje Stemland "Skriften på veggen" ("The writing on the wall") "...A master of repartee. What perhaps is most striking in reading "Skriften på veggen" is Gunnar Staalesen's flair for the witty comment. He writes'em as people speak, with all the pauses, digressions, "illogical" leaps and defence mechanisms..."	Bergens Tidende 30.05.1988 Willy Dahl "Svarte får" ("Black sheep") "...Oh no, Bergen is not a lively place. In Gunnar Staalesen's version. In "Svarte får" the city is the setting for a double murder, narcotics smuggling to the North Sea, an insurance swindle and prostitution in a hip locale complete with discotheque and restaurant. Add a dash of adultery and violence and the result is yet an unassuming book, a city portrait in the fading November light and the bitter, sweet-sour memories of a former and happier time..."
Aftenposten Morgen 19.07.1991 Håvard Rem "Bitre blomster" ("Bitter blooms") "...A criminal-literary building inspector would find little fault with the construction. Staalesen is an ambitious architect with a sense for the elaborate and an eye for the practical. "Bitre blomster" is a sort of blend of haphazard caravan and a mansion of the finest ever glimpsed on Mt. Fløyen...."	Aftenposten 12.07.1983 Eilif Straume "I mørket er alle ulver grå" (At Night All Wolves are Grey) "...What's strange is that Arne Garborg's words in "Den bortkomne faderen" ("The fugitive father"): "He who looks finds. But not what he is looking for," can be used in the most amazing of contexts. I had been looking forward to an especially exciting crime novel, and found instead that I had read a novel about human values. About people let down by life. About the postwar period and contemporary life, and perhaps most of all, about the city of Bergen...."
Aftenposten 30.01.1975 Terje Wiig "Rygg i rand, to i spann" ("Side by side, two in a bind") "...Gunner Staalesen, who with "Rygg i rand, to i spann" won second prize in Gyldendal's crime competition, is a young man with an indisputable talent for the criminal mystery... What's more, he has managed to cultivate that suspense in our own country. No mysterious muscle-bound secret agents or cold-blooded spies here. They are just two ordinary Bergen police officers sniffing out a case...."	Dagbladet 11.11.1998 Øystein Rottem "1950. High Noon-" ("1950. High Noon") "...He sets great store by involving as much historical detail as possible. Substantial portions of the book resemble historical accounts of significant developments in the relevant time period, a kind of fictionalised history writing in which the architecture and communications enthusiast author, among other things, focuses on changes in the city's façade. As a "historian", Staalesen is naturally also interested in the most dramatic events in the city's history - great fires and explosions that left sections of the city in ruins, resulting in considerable loss of life. Characteristic for his compositional technique, it is in the context of such dramatic events that he gathers most of his characters and portrays their experiences and varying reactions..."
Berlingske Tidende, 26.09.1990 Bo Tao Michaelis "Faldne engle" ("Fallen Angels") "..."Faldne Engle" is Staalesen's most ambitious criminal saga about Veum. And the best! It quakes in its intense, cacophonous tension. It is lyrically fervent in Veum's personal encounter with a mile pole, at which stand a couple maturing men from an earlier Bergen rock scene..."	Politiken 04.12.1998 Bo Tao Michaelis "1900 Morgenrøde" ("1900 Sunrise") "...Fabulously told and well-written in an ironic, twisted realism, lyric freckles in the windblown face of Bergen's history, the old Danish-German-Norwegian Hanseatic town with a willing eye towards western progress but with both feet firmly planted in the Norwegian bible belt stretching towards the east..."
Berlingske Tidende, 1998 Henrik List "1900 Morgenrøde" ("1900 Sunrise") "..."1900 Morgenrød" is thus a well-written, easily read and particularly entertaining combination of popular history, family chronicle and crime novel - a kind of Norwegian literary-hardcore version of "Matador", with more weight on realism than nostalgia..."	Kieler Rundschau 23.12.1987 "Im Dunkeln sind alle Wölfe grau" "...Staalesen gelingt es in diesem Kriminalroman, eine ungeheuer dichte Atmosphäre aufzubauen. Sein dänischer Kollega Dan Turèll meinte, der Roman gleiche einem langen slow blues. Es ist erstaunlich, dass dieser gute Krimi- Autor erst jetzt für den deutschen Buchmarkt entdeckt wurde..."
Svenska Dagbladet 30.08.1987 Ulf Durling "I mörkret är alla ulvar grå" (At Night All Wolves are Grey) "...It is therefore bold - even a daring gamble - to join up with the so-called hardboiled school without becoming mired in clichés. Instead the genre is revitalized with a fresh, western wind..."	The Times 03. April 1986 Marcel Berlins "At Night all Wolves are grey" "...Set in Bergen, written in Norwegian. Staalesen's novel has an unmistakeable whiff of Ross Macdonald's California. Varg Veum is in the best traditions of sleuthery. The dense plot combines interesting glimpses of the seamier side of non-fjord Norway with wartime treachery and a thirty year old fatal mystery fire..."

Translated by Deborah Miller

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Last opdated 25. January 2000 by Anna Margreta Lunde, Henrik Kiiehn Nielsen and
Kari Hop Skiftesvik