Romance and contact-seeking Veum is blinded this time by his feelings, so intensely involved in some of the characters that he becomes indirectly responsible for a murder. However, in contrast to Marlowe, none of the culpable goes free. In this complex plot three cases from contrasting epochs are sifted together, the tempo is muted and long paragraphs appear which have no direct connection with the intrigue. The social perspective is broadened, and some of Veum's comments seem more frankly political than before. After 13 years as information secretary for Den Nationale Scene, in 1987 Staalesen became a full-time author.
Radio plays there have also been, both independent and based on the novels.
His most forceful stage work, however, is his dramatization of Amalie Skram's celebrated novel Hellemyrsfolket . Not even youth literature has been left untried by Staalesen. Two Bergen teenagers are sent on an exotic search for lost Viking treasure. Pursued by a gang of dangerous bandits, they land in a situation as exciting as it is improbable. All of these are nevertheless only deviations from the Veum-project, which with a certain degree of regularity has steered the author's life.