Sven Elvestad

Born in Halden, Norway, on September 7, 1884, Sven Elvestad worked as a journalist as well as a fiction writer. He is best remembered for detective stories, many of them published under the pen names Stein Riverton and Kristian F. Biller.

Elvestad wrote prolifically, with around a hundred detective tales associated with his name, and his work was translated into several languages. One of his best-known creations was the detective Asbjørn Krag, and his mystery fiction earned a lasting place in Norwegian literary history.

He died in Skien on December 18, 1934. His legacy continued after his death: the Norwegian crime-writing community later took the name Riverton from his best-known pseudonym, a sign of how strongly his work influenced the genre.