The book is unique: 6 volumes! If some detective stories spice the novel, the main thing is the history of Bergen, Norway, and even the world, the evolution of society, which we are told.
Warning, this is not easy to read! First, the novel concerns more directly Norwegian or even native of Bergen, both places and their evolution over the century are described with maniacal precision: from the outside, it is often lost even tired by these permanent allusions to places we do not know, the often impossible names. Then allusions to cultural life and local politics are often inaccessible to the novice in the field. And finally, the multitude of characters is such that we are losing more and more: a dozen family on 4,5,6 generations whose members intersect in all directions, to marry and separate. Besides their names are hard to remember! I urge readers to take out of Volume 5 entry at the beginning which are all family trees necessary (but not sufficient!).
That said, this book is a feat: first author clearly has a deep culture on the city and its history, then he behaves sensitive observer of the changing mores, plus it happens to lead this story If teeming with amazing continuity (how he himself could not get lost amidst all his characters? we wonder!), and finally he was able to arrange a suspense over the tomes since the murders the first volume will not be solved until the end of the last! And furthermore by Varg Veum, the detective of his detective novels, little wink to his readers ...
In short an atypical book ... to start only if one has the time ahead!
