Chameleon People (50 page)

Inspired by this unexpected success, the ideas for new novels have so far come very fast and easily. In 2011 and 2012, when the latest book about K2 and Patricia went to print, I was already
busy writing the next one. But that is not the case now in 2013. My aim has always been to write exciting crime novels that are not simply thrillers, and as part of this, there is a developing
relationship between the two protagonists. This book ends with them solving another murder case, but also with some dramatic events in their personal lives. And it feels like both the protagonists
and the author need a rest to think about the way forward.

I believe it is more than likely that I will write more books in the series, but think that it is highly unlikely there will be another book before 2015, at the earliest. The ideas that I have
at the moment are still far too unformed to keep the standard that I want for the books in this series. It is now time to find out whether I am only able to write books for this series with plots
from the 1960s and 1970s, or if, as a literary author, I can also work with other types of novel from other periods. For some time now, I have had ideas for three other novels, with very different
protagonists and set in different times, which I hope to realize within the next couple of years. The first, which is called
The House by the Sea
, is set in contemporary Northern Norway,
and is due to be published already in late autumn this year.

As
Chameleon People
may be the last book in the series for a while, it is all the more important to thank all my excellent advisors for their work.

My most important advisor in Cappelen Damm has once again been my ever constructive and dedicated editor, Anne Fløtaker, who has been of invaluable importance to my literary career. I
also owe a huge thanks to my critical expert advisor, Nils Nordberg, and my loyal proofreader, Sverre Dalin. Both have been observant and alert to all kinds of historical factual errors.

Amongst my personal advisors, my greatest thanks for this book, and all the others in the series, go to my linguistically gifted and reflective young friend, Mina Finstad Berg. Despite working
long days in her new post as general secretary of the Socialist Youth League of Norway, she has found time to give me extensive comments on both the idea and the finished manuscript. I also owe
Mina enormous thanks for lending her highly personal traits to the fictional character, Miriam Filtvedt Bentsen, who became a challenging third character in books three, four and five of the
series. It remains to be seen whether Miriam’s goodbye with K2 at the end of this novel will also be her final farewell in the series. I am so grateful to Mina for letting me use her
fictional alter ego in any future novels as well, without demanding that Miriam must appear if she is to continue as my advisor.

I have also received valuable comments on the language and content from my good and ever helpful friends: Ingrid Baukhol, Marit Lang-Ree Finstad and Arne Tjølsen. And I must also thank
the following people for longer and shorter comments on the manuscript: Roar Annerløv, Lene Di Dragland, Silje Flesvik, Anne Lise Fredlund, Kristine Amalie Myhre Gjesdal, Gro Helene
Gulbrandsen, Else Marit Hatledal, Hanne Isaksen, Kristine Joramo, Eva Kosberg, Bjarte Leer-Salvesen, Torstein Lerhol, Espen Lie, Turid Lilleøren, Katrine Tjølsen and Magnhild K. B.
Uglem.

Marit appears in my novel in a minor role as Miriam’s mother, and Anne Lise and Eva appear as Ane Line Fredriksen and Eveline Kolberg. On this and a few earlier occasions where I have used
my living friends as models for fictional characters, I have been very careful to get permission from my friends first and to ensure that the fictional characters’ actions have no parallel to
events in real life. My responsibility and challenge has been to imagine how my good friends would react if they were transported forty years back in time, to be then dropped into a fictional
murder investigation at an important time in Norway’s history.

Nor have the dead people I have taken the liberty to use as models for characters in this novel ever found themselves – as far as I know – in any directly comparable situations. They
appear here as figures and personalities typical of the time rather than as historical persons. For people who are familiar with Norwegian history, the prime minister in this novel will hopefully
have recognizable traits similar to those of the man who was the prime minister of Norway in the spring of 1972. On the other hand, the head of the police security service in this novel has many
more similarities with the man who resigned as Head of the Police Security Services in dramatic circumstances some years earlier, rather than the man who held the position in 1972.

And finally, as international politics, in particular, play a far more important role here than in any of the previous books in the series, it is important to underline that the events in this
book are fictitious products of the author’s imagination. The Cold War and international politics in general had a far greater impact on Norway in the 1970s than previously. The most dramatic
incident perhaps was when another country’s security service carried out an execution on a street in my home county of Oppland in 1973, the year that I was born. The action in this book takes
place in Oslo in 1972 and is in no way linked to the historical event in Lillehammer in 1973. Nor does it build on authentic events or characters in the foreign embassy written about in this book.
In the spring of 1972, oil extraction had just started in Norway and Statoil was in its infancy. However, Norway’s negotiations with the Soviet Union regarding the demarcation line in the
Barents Sea did not start until later in the 1970s, and the parties never came as close to an agreement as they do in this novel.

Readers who wish to send comments to the author about this book, or any of the previous novels in the series, can send them to my email address: [email protected].

Hans Olav Lahlum

Gjøvik, 16 June 2013

Looking back on my afterword from 2013, I have to admit that my planning for the next years turned out to be very unreliable. True enough, I did publish
The House By the Sea
later in
2013, but that teen novel is still the only book I’ve completed that doesn’t feature K2 and Patricia (instead, it stars K2’s grandnephew and his girlfriend, trying to understand
their relationship while solving a murder mystery in a small village on the coast of northern Norway in 2012). But I then completed a fifth novel about K2 and Patricia in 2014, a sixth in 2015 and
a seventh in 2016.

English readers interested to follow K2 and Patricia beyond the end of this novel will get the chance to do so in 2017 and 2018, although in 2017 I will write a different novel from a different
era and with very different main characters, and it will be in Norwegian. I am very happy and thankful that Mantle will publish three more novels in the series, and would like to thank everyone at
Mantle for their help. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank my English-speaking readers in various countries for all the comments they have sent me.

The first chapters of this novel refers briefly to the fourth, fifth and sixth cases with K2 and Patricia. These are all short stories from my 2012 Norwegian book
De fem fyrstikkene
(
The Five Matches
), which is not available in English. Rest assured that I looked over the text and made sure the reader would have no problems whatsoever jumping over these three stories,
from the third novel taking place in 1970 to this fourth one in 1972.

Twice in the text of
Chameleon People
, a biography of the UK’s former Foreign Secretary, Ernest Bevin (1881–1951), is mentioned. This is volume one of Alan Bullock’s
The Life and Times of Ernest Bevin
, first published in 1960. Also twice mentioned in this novel is a quote from an American writer about continuing with life after the death of her
husband. The mystery writer is Mary Roberts Rhinehart (1876–1958), still known worldwide for her legendary (and still very funny) novel
The Circular Staircase
(1908). The exact words
from the 1948 edition of her autobiography,
My Story
, are ‘The shared life is gone. Hereafter you walk alone, but you do walk.’ In her final appearance in this novel, Miriam
Filtvedt Bentsen quotes a former US President – ‘I have tried so hard to do right’. These were the final words of Grover Cleveland (1837–1908), who was president from
1885–89 and from 1893–97.

Chameleon People
makes several references to Dutchman Marinus van der Lubbe (1909–34) and German-American Bruno Richard Hauptmann (1899–1936). The characters in the novel
consider both men innocent of the crimes of which they were convicted and were executed for. In the Sixties, Seventies and Eighties, van der Lubbe and Hauptmann were often listed in articles and
books about wrongful convictions. Later research has more or less concluded that van der Lubbe
did
start the Reichstag fire in 1933, although his trial was a farce and circumstances
(including the possible involvement of Hermann Göring and the Nazi Party) remain somewhat unclear. This is the conclusion drawn in Ian Kershaw’s excellent biography
Hitler
(2008). In the case of Bruno Hauptmann, it seems clear that the ladder used for the Lindbergh kidnapping in 1932 came from his garage, but it remains disputed whether Hauptmann himself was guilty
of the kidnapping and/or the subsequent murder. For a fairly balanced take on this complex and fascinating case, I recommend Richard T. Cahill’s book
Hauptmann’s Ladder: A
Step-by-Step Analysis of the Lindbergh Kidnapping
(2014).

Hans Olav Lahlum

Gjøvik, 25 June 2016

Also by Hans Olav Lahlum

T
HE
H
UMAN
F
LIES

S
ATELLITE
P
EOPLE

T
HE
C
ATALYST
K
ILLING

H
ANS
O
LAV
L
AHLUM
is a Norwegian crime author, historian, chess player and politician. The books that
make up his crime series featuring Criminal Investigator Kolbjørn Kristiansen (known as K2) and his precocious young assistant Patricia are bestsellers in Norway.
The Human Flies
was the first, and was followed by
Satellite People
and
The Catalyst Killing
.
Chameleon People
is the fourth book in the series.

First published 2016 by Mantle

This electronic edition published 2016 by Mantle
an imprint of Pan Macmillan
20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR
Associated companies throughout the world
www.panmacmillan.com

ISBN 978-1-5098-0951-6

Copyright © Hans Olav Lahlum 2013
English translation copyright © Kari Dickson 2016

Cover image © Shutterstock

Originally published in Norwegian in 2013 as
Kameleonmenneskene
by Cappelen Damm, Oslo

This translation has been published with the financial support of NORLA.

The right of Hans Olav Lahlum to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Pan Macmillan does not have any control over, or any responsibility for, any author or third-party websites referred to in or on this book.

You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital,
optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be
liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Visit
www.panmacmillan.com
to read more about all our books and to buy them. You will also find features, author
interviews and news of any author events, and you can sign up for e-newsletters so that you’re always first to hear about our new releases.