It is a lovely summer's day, one of the best. Arnstein Weide, fourteen years and three months old, is on his way to meet his friend from school, Ørjan. But there are police cars and police officers outside Ørjan's house. One of them asks Arnstein to leave. Next day at school, there is a rumour going around that Ørjan has shot his father. And that he is now missing. It is 1957.

Twenty years later, Arnstein has become an author. Ørjan is still missing. The murder remains unsolved. Then a theatre troupe from Germany arrive, and things start to happen. But what really happened in the summer of 1957? And what did it mean for the two friends, their parents and their neighbours – and not least Arnstein's wife, the loving and devoted Lisbeth?

The answer only comes when the story fast-forwards to our own time. In a graveyard, in front of a gravestone, two people are forced to make their final decisions. Decisions pushing the limits of loyalty and love, but perhaps desire and justice as well. This is a novel set in Oslo. It reflects life as it was lived in the first afterwar period and all the changes that came with political struggles and youthful rebellion. And where it all ended.

‘This year’s novel from Tor Edvin Dahl is a rare experience. Det mørke huset is also great literature purely from a linguistic and composition-related perspective.’
5/6
FÆDRELANDSVENNEN