Gunnar Staalesen

Gunnar Staalesen is a Norwegian crime fiction author who is one of the most important figures in Scandinavian noir. Bitter Flowers is part of his long-running and acclaimed series featuring Varg Veum, a private investigator based in Bergen, Norway, who has been described as the Norwegian Philip Marlowe. The Varg Veum series, which spans over forty years and more than twenty novels, is one of the longest-running detective series in Scandinavian literature. Staalesen's writing combines the atmospheric landscapes and social commentary of Nordic noir with the hard-boiled tradition of American detective fiction, creating a distinctive hybrid that has earned him an international readership. He has won the Riverton Prize, Norway's most prestigious crime fiction award, multiple times. His audiobooks and books bring one of Norway's finest crime writers to English-speaking audiences.