Mystery and Crime · Hardback

A Fifth Season

Norwegian title: En femte årstid

Torkil Damhaug

Ann, Victor, Helene and Nicolai are four young friends. They like trying things out, but their exploits don't always turn out well. One of the things they should not have done was to lock a classmate in the basement of a ruined riverside factory, where there had once been a nasty accident. Soon after, two of the four youngsters are found dead, and the third has disappeared.A Fifth Season is a psychological thriller which brings the reader close to both victims and perpetrators. It is a crime novel where the reader has the opportunity to follow the investigation of abduction and murder. What happened? Who is guilty?‘Torkil Damhaug is a crime writer who is unusually assured in his form; I am unaware of any other writer who can invoke the way in which desperation lies in wait in the most everyday situations in quite the way that he does.’ VG‘Damhaug is a fantastic story­teller, who painstakingly unravels his well­composed narrative. Through dialogue, shifts in perspective and a broad spectrum of minor figures, his characters are depicted as a consequence of suppression, conflict and failure. The book is structured as a crime novel, but is also a masterfully constructed study of young people's environment in the most precariously emotional time of anyone's life, where anything can happen, for better or (in this case) worse. This book could be described as rural Norwegian crime writing with a high degree of literary ambition.’ DAGBLADET