Alyson Read's Reviews > Fallen Angels

At the start of the story set in 1986 in Bergen, Norway, social worker turned private investigator Varg Veum attends the funeral Jan Petter Olsen, a man he knew from his schooldays. He only sees two other old classmates, journalist Paul Finckel and Jakob Aasen. Jakob had been the guitarist turned keyboard player in the very successful band The Harpers, formed in 1958 with three other lads from the same district and school. Varg hasn’t seen Jakob since 1965 when Jakob married Rebecca, the girl that Varg had loved since his early childhood but never managed to snare for himself. After the funeral the three men go for drinks and reminisce. Leaving Paul behind, Varg and Jakob visit a music venue where the “golden oldie” appearing is Johnny Solheim, The Harper’s lead singer. The Harpers disbanded in 1975 but Varg never knew why and no one seems happy to tell him. The other two band members, bassist Harry Klove and drummer Arild Hjellestad, have already died in mysterious accidents. The old friends also run into the charismatic young pop singer Belinda Bluflat who has them all under her spell, including Johnny. Jakob now works as a church organist. His wife has left him and their three children, and he asks Varg to try to find her for him. She left him once before for Johnny and might be with him again. Varg meets Johnny again twice in a short space of time. Once at his shop, alive, and then soon again, stabbed in the street, dead. Varg becomes entwined in the police investigation into the death, but soon realizes this has everything to do with the past and what happened to the band all those years ago. There is a killer in their midst and Varg fears another murder could take place. As he revisits past acquaintances and digs into buried memories that people would rather forget, he soon finds himself in the midst of something very dark and terrible, and once he brings it into the light, things will never be the same again for any of them. I found the book to be a very slow burn. Considering it is number eight in the series, it felt more like it was an introduction to Varg and his past life rather than jumping straight into a case as I would have expected. The investigation does gradually start to unroll but throughout the first half of the book there is little in the way of tension or suspense, and I was desperately hoping that something would happen soon. Despite his self proclaimed lifelong adoration of Rebecca, Varg does seem to spend a lot of time fantasizing about the bodies of most of the women he meets which gives him plenty to muse upon as he looks back on his formative years and the people he grew up with. There are some nice little touches of humour in Varg’s thoughts to himself which have translated well. The story does eventually get going and I was glad I waited. After setting the scene very well, it does get around to revealing the dark secrets that have coloured the last 21 years but also paints a captivating portrait of the town and its inhabitants over the years as they look back upon their youth and question the choices they made. 4*