Summer, 1943. Daniel Berkåk, who works as a courier for the Press and Military Office in Sweden, is killed on his last cross-border mission to Norway.
Demobbed sailor Kai Fredly escapes from occupied Norway into Sweden, but finds that the murder of his Nazi-sympathiser brother is drawing the attention of the authorities on both sides of the border.
The Norwegian government, currently exiled in London, wants to know what happened to their courier, and the job goes to writer Jomar Kraby, whose first suspect is a Norwegian refugee living in Sweden … a refugee with a past as horrifying as the events still to come … a refugee named Kai Fredly…
Both classic crime and a stunning exposé of Norwegian agents in Stockholm during the Second World War, The Lazarus Solution is a compulsive, complex and dazzling historical thriller from one of the genre’s finest writers.
It's my pleasure to be hosting the blog tour for The Lazarus Solution today, Many thanks to Kjell Ola Dahl, Orenda Books and Anne Cater from Random Things Tours for inviting me and for my advance digital copy of the novel.
The Lazarus Solution is Kjell Ola Dahl's third standalone historical crime fiction novel and as with The Curator and The Assistant, it's a grimly fascinating exploration of one of the darkest periods of history.
Set in 1943, events take place during a period when people are starting to believe that Germany will be beaten but this isn't an all-out action thriller and while what occurs here is perhaps not significant on a grand scale, it's these smaller stories which are the backdrop to any war. The impact on people's lives, whether through loss or estrangement is devastating and as much as this is a complex murder mystery, it's particularly powerful as an examination of human strengths and frailties.
The narrative follows two main characters; Jomar Kraby is a writer and social commentator whose heavy drinking and chequered past has taken its toll on his body, while Kai Fredly might be the younger man but has his own demons to deal with. Kraby may be an unlikely investigator – he describes himself as an "impecunious bohemian and alcoholic" – but instructions from London, passed to the Norwegian Legation in Sweden, see him initially reluctantly but later doggedly trying to discover who murdered the courier, Daniel Berkåk. Throughout the book it seems as though Jomar is living on his wits and although he strikes a rather shambolic figure there are some intense scenes which convey just how much danger he is in. Readers are also given an insight into his personal life, which is often quite melancholic and tinged with regret. However, Kraby is still a likeable character who, despite his many flaws, is an erudite, perceptive man.
I found it harder initially to warm to Kai Fredly but his behaviour means that he is obviously the more opaque character and as the novel progresses, it becomes increasingly apparent that his declared story may not tell the whole truth. I certainly pitied him; his own experiences fighting fascism in Spain, the loss of both his parents and the murder of his Nazi-sympathiser brother, evidently weigh heavily on him. However, his obsessiveness and secrecy ensure it's impossible to know whether he can be trusted. He is both vulnerable and suspicious and as much as I could empathise with his predicament, his actions are puzzlingly ambiguous. The characterisation is superb throughout and although Kraby and Fredly are the central protagonists, the secondary characters are equally as well-drawn.
The juxtaposition between neutral Sweden and Nazi-Occupied Norway is especially intriguing – the understandable ambivalence of the Norwegians towards their host country, where they have been given refuge but watch German soldiers travel unimpeded by train is particularly thought-provoking. While the constant danger of Nazism is claustrophobically chilling, the shadow of Communism hangs over proceedings too. Throughout the book, the sense of place engendered is as richly atmospheric as I've come to expect from Kjell Ola Dahl and praise should be given to Don Bartlett, too, for his seamless translation.
As readers and characters are forced to repeatedly question just who can be trusted, the shocking conclusion finally reveals the meaning behind the book's curious title. The Lazarus Solution is an intelligent, complex novel with a tense, eloquent storyline that, despite being a slow burner, packs a satisfying punch. I thoroughly recommend it.
The Lazarus Solution will be published by Orenda Books on 27th April 2023, purchasing links can be found here but please support independent bookshops if possible.
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About the Author
Don Bartlett lives with his family in a village in Norfolk. He completed an MA in Literary Translation at the University of East Anglia in 2000 and has since worked with a wide variety of Danish and Norwegian authors, including Jo Nesbø and Karl Ove Knausgaard. He has previously translated The Consort of Death, Cold Heart, We Shall Inherit the Wind, Where Roses Never Die and Wolves in the Dark in the Varg Veum series.
One of the fathers of the Nordic Noir genre, Kjell Ola Dahl was born in 1958 in Gjøvik. He made his debut in 1993, and has since published twelve novels, the most prominent of which is a series of police procedurals cum psychological thrillers (The Oslo Detectives series) featuring investigators Gunnarstranda and Frølich. In 2000 he won the Riverton Prize for The Last Fix and he also won both the prestigious Brage and Riverton Prizes for The Courier in 2015. The Courier was longlisted for the CWA International Dagger and was a number-one bestseller in ebook. His work has been published in fourteen countries, and he lives in the Norwegian countryside.
About the Translator
Thanks for the blog tour support x
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