The Lazarus Solution by Kjell Ola Dahl tr. Don Bartlett #bookreview #TheLazarusSolution #blogtour #RandomThingsTours

Summer, 1943. When a courier for Sweden’s Press and Military Office is killed on his final mission, the Norwegian government-in-exile appoints a writer to find the missing documents in this breathtaking WW2 thriller.
Daniel Berkåk works as a courier for the Press and Military Office in Stockholm. On his last cross-border mission to Norway, he carries a rucksack full of coded documents and newspapers, but before he has a chance to deliver anything he is shot and killed and the contents of his rucksack are missing. The Norwegian government, currently exiled in London, wants to know what happened, and the job goes to writer Jomar Kraby,whose first suspect is a Norwegian refugee living in Sweden, whose past that is as horrifying as the events still to come…
Both classic crime and a stunning exposé of Norwegian agents in Stockholm during the Second World War, The Lazarus Solution is a compulsive, complex, richly authentic historical thriller from one of the godfathers of Nordic Noir.

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Hi and welcome to my review of The Lazarus Solution!

Thanks to Anne Cater at Random Things Tours for the invite and to Orenda Books for the digital proof!

Whether it’s another instalment of the Oslo Detectives series or a new historical fiction novel, it is always such a pleasure to dive into a new Kjell Ola Dahl novel and find out what he has in store for you this time. This is an author who always manages to surprise me, and teach me a thing or two while he’s at it. And while I do enjoy his police procedural series very much, it’s his historical fiction I love most.

The Courier was the first book I read by this author and at the time, I wasn’t much of a WWII reader. In the meantime, I have broadened my horizons, at the very least partly thanks to The Courier, and I’ve become rather fond of reading stories set in this time period. Regardless, The Lazarus Solution transported me to a time and place I didn’t know very well and was happy to learn more about.

The Lazarus Solution is told from the perspectives of Jomar Kraby, a writer tasked with a murder investigation, and Kai Fredly, a refugee with a bit of a chequered past who’s doing some investigating of his own. As much as I enjoyed following these two men in their investigations and interactions, I first and foremost loved reading about Norway and Sweden in the throes of WWII, and the various opposing political ideas. They say money makes the world go round, but it’s not just money, it’s ideology and politics, if most of these characters are anything to go by.

In terms of Kraby’s and especially Kai’s investigations, the truth eluded me for the longest time, as did the relevance of the title, but boy, did it all come out in the end! My jaw literally dropped, I did not see that coming!

The Lazarus Solution is a classic Nordic Noir, with a touch of the Noir vibe of the old black-and-white crime movies in which the women are both pretty and smart and the men are quick on the draw. It did require some effort from my brain-fogged peabrain to get everything and everyone straight but it was well worth the effort. I had a great time with The Lazarus Solution and I would definitely recommend it to fans of WWII fiction.

The Lazarus Solution is out on 27 April. Pre-order it directly from Orenda Books here.