Wisting ★★★½

“Welcome to the second-happiest country in the world,” police detective Nils Hammer (Mads Ousdal) remarks as a new corpse is discovered in an episode of the thriller Wisting. Like much of the show itself, the tone of his remark is unembellished, understated and matter of fact.

Not every crime show in the so-called Golden Age of Television needs to announce itself as a new chapter in the genre. How many quirky, unconventional detective inspectors does the world need? Is a surreal, gory and inventive slaying (Midnight Sun, anyone?) required to get the viewer to sit up and take notice of the story that’s about to unfold? Not that long ago, crime shows went about their business with brisk efficiency; hold the fireworks, the quirky character tics, the chunky knitwear and retro sports car.

Wisting, which takes its name from the eponymous chief detective in the coastal town Larvik (best known as the birthplace of explorer Thor Heyerdahl, fun fact), has largely passed under the radar. This is despite being the most expensive show produced in Norway, owing its origins to an expansive collection of bestselling books (by Jorn Lier Horst, himself a former police investigator), most of which have been translated into English, and the overall popularity of Scandi-noir TV.

As played by Sven Nordin, perhaps the most notable thing about Wisting is his lack of affectation and vanity. He’s a doughy lump of a man, gruff and hard to read, reserved and not given to great shows of warmth or affection. We’re not even sure how good a policeman he is. Dogged and methodical, perhaps, but certainly not beyond reproach and grave misjudgments, traits that are compounded by revelations of past cases, his marriage and the loss of his wife. Like much of the show, the drip feed of information about Wisting is slow and sparing.

He has two grown children, twins Line (Thea Green Lundberg) and Thomas (played by both Jonas Strand Gravli and Fredrik Stenberg Ditlev-Simonsen). Line is a crime reporter for a local media company, and a central theme of all three seasons of the show is the ways in which her work overlaps with, thwarts and sometimes benefits the case Wisting is investigating. There is much necessary secrecy between them.

Thomas, a young doctor, has a more difficult relationship with his father. Wisting clearly had little time for Thomas, and his attempts at reconciliation are clumsy at best, cruel at worst.

Like in the best crime shows, Wisting’s storylines delve deep into its setting. A small and modest town on the coast of Norway, Larvik is large enough that a man can die watching TV in his loungeroom and his absence goes unnoticed for months, but small enough for family secrets to become town gossip.