The Montrose Abbey echoed with the sounds of shouting and broken glass before silence fell once more. Apparently there had been a burglary, with the library ransacked and blood-stained. There is evidence of a fight – and the saintly Abbot Montrose has disappeared, with the only evidence being a fragment of his cassock caught on the railings around the abbey.

Enter Detective Asbjørn Krag – but the investigation will take him all over the city, from the highest high to the lowest low. The truth, however, is far stranger than anyone could have anticipated.

The life and works of Sven Elvestad is rather complicated – take a look here for more information – but in brief, he wrote in Norway over the course of his life (1884-1934) and some of his crime fiction was originally published under the pen name Stein Riverton.

This book was originally published in 1917 under the title Montrose, but has been translated and released by Kazabo Publishing. I’ll be honest, if I’d realised when it was written, I might not have read it, as I’ve generally found books written that early to be disappointing. Luckily, I didn’t realise this, as otherwise I wouldn’t have read this very interesting book.

I mentioned in a recent review that I tend to remember the bits of a book that annoy me, especially when I’ve read as many books as I did on my recent holiday – so I can’t say an awful lot about this book because there wasn’t anything that annoyed me. It’s a story that keeps moving, keeps the reader guessing and has a satisfying solution. There is much to think about and at least one laugh-out-loud moment from a character who – oh, this is a minor niggle – could have been in the book a bit more. I don’t know, maybe he has a bigger role in other books.

Definitely a book that people with an interest in the history of crime fiction should take a look at.

Many thanks to the publishers for the review e-copy.