Oslo, 1938. War is in the air and Europe is in turmoil. Hitler’s Germany has occupied Austria and is threatening Czechoslovakia; there’s a civil war in Spain and Mussolini reigns in Italy.
When a woman turns up at the office of police-turned-private investigator Ludvig Paaske, he and his assistant – his one-time nemesis and former drug-smuggler Jack Rivers – begin a seemingly straightforward investigation into marital infidelity.
But all is not what it seems, and when Jack is accused of murder, the trail leads back to the 1920s, to prohibition-era Norway, to the smugglers, sex workers and hoodlums of his criminal past … and an extraordinary secret.
Both a fascinating portrait of Oslo’s interwar years, with Nazis operating secretly on Norwegian soil and militant socialists readying workers for war, The Assistant is also a stunningly sophisticated, tension-packed thriller – the darkest of hard-boiled Nordic Noir – from one of Norway’s most acclaimed crime writers.
For fans of Sebastian Faulks, Lars Mytting, Mick Herron and Robert Harris.
It's my pleasure to be hosting the blog tour for The Assistant today. Many thanks to Kjell Ola Dahl, Orenda Books and Anne Cater for inviting me and for my advance copy of the novel.
Though best known for his Oslo Detective series, Kjell Ola Dahl has ventured into historical fiction before with the excellent The Curator. As with that standalone thriller, The Assistant shifts between two time frames revealing details of Norway's past that are perhaps largely unknown outside the country.
The assistant of the title, Jack Rivers is the epitome of a Noir antihero in a book which effortlessly exudes the melancholic mood of the genre. The Assistant opens in 1924 in Kristiana (the former name for Oslo) and at first there's an adventurous, devil-may-care sense to the proceedings as Jack helps to smuggle spirits which are banned in prohibition-era Norway. Although the stakes may be high, the sensation that both sides are participating in a game lends an air of almost innocence to this early part of the story.
It's here that Jack meets the man who is at first his adversary, then later his employer, Ludvig Paaske. Paaske is arguably a less colourful character and yet as the book progresses, he proves to be just as complex. The uneasy relationship between the pair is intriguing and it's never obvious where either of their loyalties will ultimately lie. All good Noir needs a femme fatale or two and The Assistant is no exception with the men in the novel tempted, manipulated and frustrated by the women whose actions are often the catalyst for events in both the 1920s and in 1938 when the world is once more on the brink of war.
The inevitability of what is to come is felt throughout the chapters set in the pre-war period and the presence of Nazi officers in Norway lends an unsettling premonition of foreboding to the story. As the world passively watches Hitler's rapacious annexing of Europe, there is already a war in Spain and with socialists in the country forbidden from fighting for the Spanish Republic, the inexorable rise of Nationalism leads Paaske in particular to question whether evil can be fought with good.
Amongst the political upheaval, Jack and Paaske become caught up in their own deadly chicaneries where it seems that everybody has a secret and nobody can be trusted. Every character bears their own flaws and as such, this isn't a novel for anybody who needs their protagonists to be likeable; even the charismatic Jack reveals he has a darker, more brutal side to his disposition.
Kjell Ola Dahl's clever structuring allows the two threads to weave back and forth in a tightly plotted, compelling examination of passion and deception while Don Bartlett's translation captures the opaque, nihilistic atmosphere of The Assistant perfectly, enveloping the reader in a story which explores the inescapable tragedy of the past.
The Assistant is published by Orenda Books and can be purchased directly from their website and from Bookshop.org, Hive, Amazon, Waterstones or by ordering from your favourite independent bookshop.
Don't miss the rest of the blog tour, details are below.
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Huge thanks for the blog tour support xx
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