Death in a Cold Climate
It was midday on December 21st in the Norwegian city of Tromsø when the boy was last seen – a tall, blond boy swathed in an anorak and scarf against the Arctic noon. He was not seen again, not until three months later, when Professor Mackenzie’s dog started sniffing around in the snow and uncovered a human ear . . . attached to a naked corpse.
Nobody knew who he was, or where he had come from. And after three months it was almost impossible to track down the identity of the corpse. But Inspector Fagermo refused to give up – and as he probed deeper into the Arctic city he began to discover a dangerous conspiracy of blackmail, espionage, and cold-blooded murder.
Regarded as Robert Barnard's best, Death in a Cold Climate is a scandi detective novel with a captivating mystery at its heart.
Robert Barnard (1936-2013) was born in Essex, lived in Leeds and was educated at Balliol. He had a distinguished career as an academic before he became a full-time writer. His first crime novel, Death of an Old Goat, was written while he was professor of English at the University of Tromsø in Norway, the world's most northerly university. He was a writer of great versatility, from the light and satirical tone of his earlier books to the more psychological preoccupations of recent ones, such as A Fatal Attachment.
Under the name of Bernard Bastable he also wrote novels featuring Mozart as a detective, and is the author of many short stories. He created several detectives, including Perry Trethowan and Charlie Peace. Robert Barnard said he wrote only to entertain. He regarded Agatha Christie as his ideal crime writer and published an appreciation of her work, A Talent to Deceive, as well as books on Dickens, a history of English literature and nearly thirty mysteries. Robert Barnard was the winner of the 2003 CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger Award for a lifetime of achievement.