AshehougAgency

The Murder at Woldnes

Is there a murderer on the loose in the fashionable Woldnes? Can Vilhelm Thygesen solve a murder case the police have not managed to crack?

The private-owned Woldnes Clinic and Patient Hotel in Østfold is a place for both people with old money and the nouveau riche. A murder has been committed; a 38-year-old British doctor has been beaten to death with a bronze statuette. Thygesen has suffered a serious health blow and accepts a free stay at the patient hotel. The manager at Woldnes has offered him the stay, with the hope that Thygesen will play the part of private detective. Thygesen enters this role with everything he’s got. Several of the patients at the hotel turn out to have a motive, and Thygesen examines them closer.

Like this, the author sets everything up for a classic ”who-dunnit” at Woldnes. But Thygesen would not be Thygesen and Michelet would not be Michelet if the story was to have a classic solution.

Thygesen, who is now 70, involves his friend Renate Winløv in the case, and their friendship evolves into something more, despite Thygesen’s illness, or maybe because of it.

The Murder at Woldnes is the 11th book about Vilhelm Thygesen. It is now 33 years since Thygesen appeared in Jon Michelet’s debut novel He Who is Born to be Hanged Will Never Drown. Michelet soon made Thygesen into an innovation in Norwegian crime literature, a protagonist who is neither a policeman nor a private detective, but a loner who is often struggling as much with his own existence as with criminal devilry.

Praise for The Murder at Woldnes:

”Without disparagement of any of our crime authors, a new Thygesen crime from Jon Michelet is an event … The author’s irony filter works well. This time he has treated himself to an epilogue … it is possibly the most beautiful epilogues yours truly have read.”
(Aftenposten)

”Let us sincerely hope that Vilhelm Thygesen lives on … Jon Michelet sails on at full steam as an author.”
(Fredrikstad blad)

”it is well-written, in part extremely well-written, and moreover, it has a believable plot. Still, it is the epilogue that sticks in your mind, as the most sensitive, most beautiful thing Michelet has ever written. Because the epilogue is in this case not the end, but the beginning of a love story. And it is filled with optimism and hope. In other words, there is no reason to retire an old crime hero.”
(Dagbladet)

”clever intrigue, and the book is filled with charm. An updated version of a classic crime story, with a touch of Cluedo, guided by a hero sporting a ponytail, a fringed jacket and a decaying manhood.”
(VG)

”Michelet paints loving pictures of people in crises, of people in the autumn of life. And he seizes the opportunity to put in finely tuned depictions of Norway anno 2008 … The Murder at Woldnes is a subtle little crime – a novel where the author, after the solving of the murder, presents a beautiful epilogue which sparkles in the last warming love-beams of late summer.”
(Stavanger Aftenblad)

”This is simply really good literature. The descriptions and characterisations are elegant. The dialogue is well-written and marked by a wonderful sense of presence. Recommended!”
(Nationen)

”Jon Michelet is a tremendously gifted storyteller – he is often at his very best when he writes about the well heeled people in the society. There is no doubt that the writer shares his hero’s amusement over and agreeable contempt for the troubles and imaginary joys of the inborn bourgeoisie and their challengers, the nouveau riches.”
(Norwegian Broadcasting System)

First published: 2008, Forlaget Oktober
Jon Michelet: Biography and bibliography