Cold Hearts by Gunnar Staalesen

Summary

On a frosty January day in Bergen, private investigator Varg Veum is visited by a prostitute. Her friend Margrethe has disappeared and hasn’t been seen for days. Before her disappearance, something had unsettled her: she’d turned away a customer and returned to the neighbourhood in terror. Shortly after taking the case, Veum is confronted with a brutal, uneasy reality. He soon finds the first body – and it won’t be the last. His investigation leads him into a dark subculture where corrupted idealism has had deadly consequences.

Dark secrets lurk everywhere, as the murky pattern of wounded people, worm-eaten lives and hearts long grown cold proves deadly…for someone.