Fear Not (Pengemannen) is the fourth novel in Anne Holt’s series about Johanne Vik and Adam Stubo translated into English. In my opinion it is perhaps the best book so far in the series.

Fear Not starts with several bangs. They take the form of a series of seemingly unrelated events. First Johanne’s daughter, Kristiane, walks by herself out of a hotel where the family is celebrating a wedding, and into a busy street in the middle of Oslo. She would probably have been killed by a tram if she hadn’t been saved by a stranger. The stranger saves her and then disappears.

Then, quite shockingly, a on Christmas Eve a female Norwegian bishop is found murdered in Bergen! Bishop Eva Karin Lysgaard is a very popular and highly respected bishop. Why would anybody want to kill her? And why was she out by herself on Christmas Eve, walking the deserted streets of Bergen? Streets in Norway are deserted on Christmas Eve.

Also, a young asylum seeker, only seventeen years old, is found dead in the harbor of Oslo. The young man was a prostitute.

Adam Stubo is dispatched to Bergen to assist the police there in the investigation of the Lysgaard murder. This is a high profile case that gets lots of media attention, and the police are clueless.

Meanwhile, in Oslo, criminal psychologist and profiler Johanne Vik, working on a project about hate crimes, finds indications that the killings may actually be connected. But while she searches for proof of a connection and Adam continues to investigate in Bergen, bodies keep turning up in Oslo.

Johanne Vik thinks she may know the solution, but her theory is so farfetched that she can hardly believe her own reasoning. Lacking evidence and hard facts, she doesn’t even feel that she can bother Adam with her ideas. At the same time she strongly feels that unless something is done, the killings will continue.

Fear Not is an action-filled crime fiction novel that implicitly raises important and interesting questions about such topics as terrorism, hate and the nature of love. It takes a while for the suspense to be felt, but when it does, this novel really grabs hold of you. The plot is complicated, intriguing and very engaging. While the plot may not be all that likely, it certainly seems possible. I like reading Anne Holt, I enjoyed the book a lot, and eagerly await the next installment in the series!

Links to books by Anne Holt at amazon US, amazon UK, and amazon CAN.

Frozen Assets, which was published in the UK under a different title – “Frozen Out”, takes place in Iceland at the time when the earth started to collapse beneath the big, expansive Icelandic banks. With the bursting financial bubble as backdrop, English writer Quentin Bates has written an excellent crime novel that begins with the discovery of the corpse of a drowned man near a sleepy and quite boring village not too far from Reykjavik.

Iceland is a cold and wet place, very Scandinavian. Not necessarily an easy place to write about if you are an outsider. Quentin Bates, however, is quite familiar with Iceland – he has spent a lot of time there and seems to have learned a great deal about the country and its people. Frozen Assets feels very authentic, and I was very impressed by Bates’ understanding of the “mores” of the fish-loving folks living on this little volcanic island far out in the Atlantic Ocean.

A corpse has washed up on a beach in the area where police sergeant Gunnhildur Gisladottir, a “big fat lass with a face that frightens the horses”, is in charge. It is quite possible that the dead man could simply have drowned. It happens. But Gunna the Cop has a feeling. And there are some strange things about the case: How did the deceased get to Hvalvik? What brought him there?

As Gunna – a strong-willed and somewhat stubborn woman who is strong on street-smarts, and has a sound understanding of how things work in Iceland – identifies the drowned man and starts to map out his movements and his networks, the case takes her away from peaceful little Hvalvik and propels her into circles in Reykjavik dominated by deceit, violence, corruption and abuse of power. A man has drowned in the middle of the night at a place more than one hundred kilometers away from where he was last seen – a man in a position to possibly possess sensitive information and Gunna wants to know how and why.

Gunna’s questions are reasonable. She does what the police are supposed to do when people die under suspicious circumstances. Even so, it seems many powerful people want her to stop digging. They know where the trail Gunna stubbornly follows will end, and want the truths hidden there to remain forever buried.

Gunna is a very interesting and quite intriguing woman, and the other characters are well drawn and fit nicely into the story. The narrative is intriguingly layered, with lots of interesting side stories and power plays: a mysterious blogger that reveals inside secrets and adds tension (‘Skandalblogger’), corrupt and greedy politicians, shady business dealings, a violent hired gun on the loose, and so on.

Frozen Assets is a very good crime fiction novel. I found the story quite compelling, warm, well-told and quite suspenseful. It’s a solid police procedural, with an excellent cast of characters that is well worth reading and is an interesting addition to the Icelandic crime fiction literature. I really liked Gunna and think she has lots of potential – I’m already waiting for the next installment in what I hope will become the Gunnhildur series of Icelandic crime!

Links to books by Quentin Bates at Amazon US, Amazon UK, and Amazon CAN.

PS: You may also want to have a look at a very interesting interview with Quentin Bates at Barbara Fister’s blog.

Headhunters,
US Edition

Finally Jo Nesbo’s freestanding novel Headhunters, is here. This is not a Harry Hole novel: instead of the tall, gutsy detective this novel features Roger Brown, a headhunter. An excellent headhunter even, a man who is extremely good at locating and selecting the right candidates for top corporate positions. He is an expensive guy to hire, but definitely worth every penny: He is a man who can see right through job candidates, asking just the right questions, testing their wits and skills and making them tense or relaxed at will. When he is ready, he slices them open with a winning smile. He intuits what the employer needs, even if the employer doesn’t know it, and delivers candidates with the perfect mix of qualities.

Roger Brown, the main protagonist in Headhunters, is an intriguing guy. He is small: only 1 meter 68 centimeters – five and a half feet. Despite what some might view as an obstacle, he is extremely successful, very well-respected, and quite attractive to beautiful women. He has that certain “je ne sais quoi” – that extra-special something; the glitter in the eye, the wit, the sharp edge, the charisma. He is hands-down the best headhunter in Norway, and he knows it. His talent has led to stunning successes for some very fortunate corporations and has saved others from ruinous disasters.

Headhunters,
UK Edition

Roger Brown is married to the stunningly beautiful and desirable Diana – definitely a sight for sore eyes but a very expensive woman to maintain. So, even though Roger makes a small fortune at his profession, he finds himself in deep financial trouble. He and his delightful and charming wife always manage to spend far more than even Roger is able to bring home.

So Roger needs to make some serious money on the side. Which he does. He has a second career where he is every bit as competent as he is in his “day” job. Roger Brown is an extremely adept art thief. In a sense, he has leveraged his job as a headhunter into this second, highly profitible career – Roger-the-Headhunter learns many things that are useful for Roger-the-Thief. And he doesn’t mind stealing from his clients, just as long as the chances of his being found out are minimal.

However, after breaking into the house of the ideal candidate for a very high-level position, he suddenly realizes he may have gone one step too far. Brown felt certain that the theft of the candidate’s Rubens would be the solution to his financial woes. The final solution, in fact. But in the house, he discovers something which leads him to believe that the relationship between him and his beloved Diana may not be exactly what it seems. Then, the next morning he finds his “partner in crime” dead in the front seat of his own car. Something is very wrong, indeed: The headhunter/art thief has now become the prey of a depraved but very smart and experienced man-hunter. If Roger is to come out of this in one piece, he will have to employ all of his considerable brainpower, wits and skills, and will need a very hefty dose of luck as well.

Headhunters is a wonderful crime fiction novel. Roger Brown may well be one of the best headhunters out there – who knows? It is quite certain, however, that Jo Nesbo is one of the very best crime fiction writers of our time, with a dynamic, unique writing style, excellent dialogues, intriguing characters, good descriptions, and who is wonderfully skilled at building suspense. Headhunters is an entertaining, action-filled and very well-crafted crime fiction novel. Jo Nesbo’s plot has more twists and turns than the road from Oslo to Bergen! Headhunters is an absolute pearl of a thriller – great fun, keeps you on the edge of your chair, and leaves you with a serious craving for more!

Links to books by Jo Nesbo at amazon US, amazon UK, and amazon CAN.

“Tarantino meets the Coen brothers in Nesbø’s crime novel.”
Politiken (Denmark)

“Headhunters has everything that makes a good crime novel: Strange murders, inventive disappearing acts and above all brilliant fraud for all you’re worth.”
Bogrummet (Denmark)

“…a highly entertaining, first-rate crime novel, where Nesbo uses his entire register of narrative techniques and tricks to tell a story that is wilder and more zany than anything he has ever written before.”
Dagbladet (Norway)

See also: The trailer to the Headhunters movie!

This is the fourth book in the Erica Falck – Patrik Hedstrom crime fiction series by Swedish writer Camilla Lackberg (Swedish: Läckberg). As in the other books in the series, the story is set in the idyllic little towns of Fjällbacka and Tanumshede, small places in south-west Sweden. These are places Camilla Lackberg knows well – she grew up there. But they are small, and by now Camilla Lackberg must have killed off a very significant proportion of the population in her series.

Patrik (police detective) and Erica (writer) met in The Ice Princess, but now they are living together and have a new, cute little baby. They are about to get married.

In The Gallows Bird, Patrik is called to the scene of a car accident where a woman, Marit Kaspersen, is found dead. Seemingly she is the victim of a tragic car crash. Since the car smells of alcohol it is assumed to be case of drunken driving. However, Marit Kaspersen didn’t drink. And it seems she had a lover and that her husband was jealous. And the autopsy reveals bruises around the mouth, signs that liquor has been forced upon the driver. Perhaps the assumed accident is a murder?

Then a spectacle arrives in Tanumshede and creates turmoil in the community: A bunch of people participating in a reality TV-show that is to be filmed there. Many people in the city are delighted with the nationwide publicity, but it isn’t so easy for Patrik and colleagues to cope with the fall-out. As cameras shadow the stars’ every move, relations with the locals are strained to breaking point. The participants behave outrageously and manage to alienate the locals. When one of the show’s participants is found murdered, is gets more complicated for Patrik and his colleagues.

Now the little town really attracts the attention of the media, and the investigation receives much too much attention. As the country tunes in, the bodies mount up in Fjällbacka, while Patrik faces his toughest investigation yet under the intense glare of the media spotlights!

Suddenly a piece of evidence reveals that the two seemingly disparate homicides are linked. It also becomes clear that there is a pattern of similar deaths over a period of time and in different parts of the country. Patrick is forced to realize that these cases are closer to home than he thought.

The Gallows Bird is a pleasant and easy read. The characters are well rounded – moody, make mistakes, seem alive – and Camilla Lackberg adds side stories about Patrik and Erica, their new child, the marriage, and so on, that are told with warmth, are interesting to readers who follow the series and add depth to the characters. The mystery is interesting as well, and the plot is relatively unpredictable but not among the best in this otherwise very good series. The Gallows Bird in an interesting, suspenseful and entertaining read that I recommend.

Praise for Camilla Lackberg:

‘Lackberg is an expert at mixing scenes of domestic cosiness with blood-curdling horror! a must for white-knuckle junkies’ — Guardian

‘Lackberg is particularly good at portraying the claustrophobia of a small community in which everyone knows everyone else and the police may well be friends with killers’ — The Times

‘As with earlier books, there is an adroit manipulation of elements: the unpredictable plotting, the striking evocation of life in this idyllic (but flawed) community and – perhaps most satisfying – the intriguing interaction between Patrick and Erica, both loving and fractious. It’s Läckberg’s particular skill to have created two of the most fully rounded characters in contemporary crime fiction, with a warmth that cuts through the Nordic chill’ —
Barry Forshaw, The Independent

Links to books by Camilla Läckberg at amazon US, amazon UK, and amazon CAN.

literature Iceland reports that Blessed are the Children (Ég man þig in Icel.), Yrsa Sigurðardóttir‘s bestselling novel from last year, will be filmed soon.

“Producer Sigurjón Sighvatsson has signed a deal with Yrsa and her publisher, Veröld. The novel, which is a mixture of a crime story and a ghost story, is described by Sigurjón as being an „exciting material for a film that is at once Icelandic and international.“

Ég man þig (Blessed are the Children) was published in Icelandic in 2010 and has been a great success. This is a crime fiction from Yrsa Sigurdardottir without her usual heroine Thora (Þóra) Gudmundsdottir. It has not, so far, been translated into English.

Read more about Icelandic crime fiction!

James Thompson’s first book, Snow Angels, was delightful, tough in its style, and felt very authentic. It featured Finnish detective Kari Vaara, and was set in Northern Finland, in a rural area, in the extreme cold of the winter up there in the Far North.

Lucifer’s Tears is the sequel to Thompson’s excellent debut. Since we last saw him, the sympathetic and thoughtful forty-one year old Inspector Kari Vaara has moved to Helsinki with his pregnant wife Kate. Even though the winter in Helsinki is not nearly as cold as it is further up in the northern part of the country, Lucifer’s Tears is every bit as chilly, harsh and unrelenting as the first book.

Kari Vaara now suffers from post-traumatic stress following the events described in Snow Angels. He is more or less constantly tormented by excruciating migraines. And he is worried about Kate’s pregnancy. Even so, he is assigned a new murder case – the brutal murder, perhaps better described as slaughter, of a somewhat promiscuous woman in the bed of her lover. The nude young woman has been bound, tortured with cigarette burns, whipped viciously with a riding crop, and ultimately asphyxiated. It is a case that his superior and mentor in the police force wants to have solved very quickly. And, as it turns out, in a very certain way. Actually in a way that Kari Vaara increasingly feels will mean that an innocent man will be convicted and the murderer will get away.

Then, while investigating the complicated murder case, Kari is assigned another case “on the side” – that is also supposedly an open and shut case, where again his response is strongly suggested to him. This second case involves the possible complicity of Finnish nationals in atrocities committed against Communists and Jews during World War II. By extension, it also involves his beloved grandfather Ukki, who was a high-ranking member of the nationalist secret police during World War II. And, again, it involves very high ranking people in Finland who want him to cover up their misdeeds.

James Thompson

However, Kari Vaara is not the kind of man who can be pushed around. Many Finns are stubborn, but very few Finns are as stubborn and fiercely independent as Inspector Kari Vaara. So the more the high-ranking people above him press the “do the easy thing”button, the more Kari digs in the opposite direction.

Kari finds, in both cases, that under the tidy surface there is dirt, greed, intrigue, and betrayal. Men in high positions pushing other men in high positions – mutual protection, corruption, as well glorification and beatification of Finland’s history. The facts he digs up are not only unsettling and shocking: If they become widely known they will shake the very foundations of Finnish society and affect the images of its iconic figureheads, and heads will roll!

Lucifer’s Tears is even better than James Thomson’s excellent Snow Angels. It is written is a prose that is as tailor-made for a Finnish crime fiction novel; with conversations in short, concise sentence; and as much if not more unsaid than said. The descriptions of Helsinki, the Finns, and the Finnish style of life and so on are wonderful and evocative. It feels very right to say that the prose is masterful. And – last but by no way least – the plot is rich, twisting and very engaging. Even though James Thompson is American and not from Scandinavia, this is Scandinavian crime fiction at it’s excellent best – as good as you’ll find it in the books of Stieg Larsson, Jo Nesbo and Henning Mankell, but written in a unique, very Finnish and very engaging fashion. It’s a book that will have you enjoy the mystery and be fascinated by how different the setting is from what you are familiar with.

A stunning tale!

Links to books by James Thompson at Amazon US and Amazon UK

This is third book in Icelandic writer Yrsa Sigardardottir’s series about Thóra Gudmundsdóttir, a single mother and lawyer living in Reykjavik, Iceland. Yrsa Sigurdardottir is among my favorite writers; she writes excellently and keeps improving.  Ashes to Dust mostly takes place at Vestmannaeyjar (The Westman Islands), a small archipelago off the south coast of Iceland. Interestingly, the archipelago came to international attention in January 1973, when the volcano Eldfjell erupted. The eruption created a 700-foot-high mountain where a meadow had been, and caused the island’s 5000 inhabitants to be temporarily evacuated to the mainland. This is the backdrop for the dark mystery in Ashes to Dust.

When the authorities decides to dig out some of the houses that were buried when the volcano erupted at the Westman Islands more than 30 years ago, in order to create a volcanic tourist attraction dubbed ‘The Pompeii of the North’, Markus Magnússon hires Thora to try to prevent the excavation of the house where he and his family lived. When that proves impossible, he makes Thora negotiate for him so that he is permitted to be the first person into the basement when it becomes accessible. When it is, he enters the basement alone.

Soon after, he calls for Thora to come down there:

Thóra peered at the floor, but couldn’t see anything that could have frightened Markús that much, only three mounds of dust. She moved the light of her torch over them. It took her some time to realize what she was seeing— and then it was all she could do not to let the torch slip from her hand. ‘Good God,’ she said. She ran the light over the three faces, one after another. Sunken cheeks, empty eye-sockets, gaping mouths; they reminded her of photographs of mummies she’d once seen in National Geographic. ‘Who are these people?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Markús…

The basement contains three dead bodies, covered with volcanic ash, and in addition a skull that had been kept in a box. The body belonging to the skull is missing.

Markús Magnússon, Thora’s client, was only a teenager when the volcano erupted. He claims that he had been asked to pick up the box for a woman who was his childhood sweetheart, and that he didn’t know that it contained a skull. Now he falls under suspicion and hires Thóra Gudmundsdottir to defend him. The case is difficult, and when the childhood sweetheart is murdered it gets even more complicated.

Thora feels the police are not doing enough for her client, and starts to investigate the murders herself. She travels to the Westman Islands, where she encounters a wall of silence. Everywhere there are omissions, lies, hidden facts and nothing is quite what it seems to be.

The plot in Ashes to Dust is clever, rich and very intriguing, with several surprising twists and turns, and Thóra Gudmundsdóttir is an excellent protagonist. Yrsa Sigurdardottir’s story telling seems to be improving from book to book, and I thought this book was fabulous – in my opinion her best so far; tense and perhaps even a little terrifying. This is outstanding, very intelligent crime fiction!

Links to Yrsa Sigurdardottir’s books at amazon US, amazon UK, and amazon CAN.

This is an interesting Swedish crime fiction novel; a book that to some extent is a cult novel in Sweden, and that has attracted much attention because it provides a possible explanation for the assassination of Prime Minister Olof Palme in February 1986. The author, Leif GW Persson, is a professor of criminology at Rikspolisstyrelsen (National Police Board) in Sweden and one of Sweden’s bestselling crime fiction writers. Some believe the explanation to be the truth or close to the truth, others that it is completely misleading. Be that as it may – this is a book of fiction based on an actual event, and as such doesn’t need to be true. Instead, it needs to be entertaining and fun to read, and that it is, and more.

The intriguing and somewhat lyrically named story – deliciously told, with lots of humor and with live, fallible and flawed characters – starts with the apparent suicide of a young American, John Krassner, visiting Stockholm. Krassner was working on a book detailing the exploits of his uncle, Col. John Buchanan, an OSS agent in the years following WWII. The young man has seemingly fallen from a window in a student dorm, and his loose shoe killed a little dog taken for an evening stroll by its owner. Had the man been Swedish, the case might have stopped there. But he wasn’t – he was an American. So, to be on the safe side, a small investigation is launched. As it turns out, the search of his room reveals a few strange things. Even so, the case is classified as a suicide.

Then, by accident, police inspector Lars Martin Johansson and his colleagues get involved in the case. And as Johansson starts to look into it, he unearths more than he bargained for, and a larger and quite complex context for the apparent suicide quickly emerges. There is seemingly a huge puzzle surrounding the event – a puzzle that involves international espionage, attempted cover-ups, greed, and other ingredients. A high-ranking Swedish politician known by the code name “Pilgrim” features prominently in the puzzle. Also, several factors seem to point towards incompetent police work and possibly behind the scenes involvement and disinformation by Sweden’s secret police. The deeper Johansson looks, the more he sees that simply doesn’t add up the way it is supposed to.

Between Summer’s Longing and Winter’s End is at the same time fascinating and shocking. We embark on a journey deep into the underbelly of the Swedish police force, and meet lazy, incompetent and perverse police officers concerned mostly with position, power, pay, comradeship, drinking and sex. We meet cynical politicians and spin masters in controlling positions.

It’s a dark novel and a dark journey which not only seems very realistic but also masterfully recreates the blanket of uncertainty, the multiple ways insights get lost in huge and complex organizational environments where most actors have their own agendas. Fortunately there is also sarcasm, black satire, dark humor, mind boggling insights, and dialogues that make you laugh out loud. It is a wonderful novel, a riveting anti-procedure police procedural, a psychological drama, and an adventurous journey into a murky landscape we can perhaps only hope doesn’t exist but most likely does. The publication of Between Summer’s Longing and Winter’s End by Leif GW Persson is one of the major crime fiction events of 2010!

Links to books by Leif GW Persson at Amazon US, Amazon UK, and Amazon CAN.

“Laced with irony and satire . . . Reminiscent of Henning Mankell and Stieg Larsson in its toughness . . . Persson does a fine job of pitting one desperate soul against another in a philosophically charged tale worthy of Ingmar Bergman—but with lots more guns.”
—Kirkus (starred)

“A brilliant political thriller.”
—Der Tagesspiegel

“One of the best Swedish crime novels of all time.”
—Expressen

“One of the most exhaustive investigations ever to have been written about. A plot full of suspense, a great adventure, and a philosophical view of the dark and painful sides of life.”
—Il Giornale di Vicenza

“Leif GW Persson’s big lush novel is a tale of mystery and intrigue and murder. .. From a country known for terrific crime novelists, Sweden’s great crime writer Leif GW Persson brilliantly takes the reader into a world of fascinating mystery and secrets.”
—Joseph Wambaugh

This book is classic Varg Veum, and a strong addition to the series. Originally entitled Din til døden and published in 1979, it was the second book published in Gunnar Staalesen’s much celebrated series about the Bergen sleuth Varg Veum, and Staalesen’s Norwegian breakthrough. Yours Until Death is a relatively noir crime fiction novel, set in bleak and rainy Bergen and featuring a disillusioned Veum, a man with a past as a social worker – but without much of a present. He is now divorced detective, nearly broke, has no clients to speak of, and lots of unpaid bills.

Then one rainy day he actually gets a new client. Roar, a little man, eight and a half years old and sharp as a tack , comes to Varg’s office with a problem. He has found the sleuth in the telephone book, listed under “Detective Bureaus”.

“Maybe it was because he was the youngest client I’d ever had. Maybe it was because he reminded me of another little boy in another part of Bergen. Or maybe it was because I had nothing else to do. Anyway, I listened to him.”

Somebody has stolen Roar’s bike, and he wants Varg to help him get it back. He knows who stole it, and he knows where it is. The bike is being held hostage by a gang of teenagers from his neighborhood who specialize in terrorizing the locals, and are led by a nineteen year old psychopath named Joker. These bad boys want to lure Roar’s mother to their hut in the forest to get the bike so they can molest her, as they have molested others.

Varg Veum recovers the stolen bike, and meets Roar’s mother Wenche Andresen – a beautiful and blue-eyed, shy, and very sensuous woman – and becomes infatuated by her. However, what seemingly is the conclusion of yet another trivial case turns into the beginning of something far bigger and more ominous.; Varg gets sucked into a murder case where the victim is Roar’s father and the person accused of the murder is Roar’s mother.- Varg is convinced that Wenche is innocent, even though all the evidence points to her. Trying to prove her innocence, and perhaps also to win her love, Veum very soon finds himself in grave danger.

Yours Until Death is great crime fiction by Gunnar Staalesen (left on the picture, with Varg Veum – actor Trond Espen Seim right), wonderfully written and excellently translated into English by Margaret Amassian; very dark yet full of dark and understated humor and at times almost unbearably tense. It is a novel more than anything about the potentially destructive force of lust and passion.

‘one of the finest, most serious, most ambitious books in post-war Norwegian crime writing’ – Norwegian critic Nils Nordberg

‘Staalesen is another fine representative of Scandinavian crime fiction’—
Independent

‘Varg Veum is in the best traditions of sleuthery’ —The Times

See also our reviews of the Varg Veum movies on DVD!

Links to Gunnar Staalesen’s books at amazon US, amazon UK, and amazon CAN.

The Danish crime fiction writer Jussi Adler-Olsen has won the Glass Key Award for his book Flaskepost fra P
.

This is the third book in Adler-Olsen’s outstanding series about police commissioner Carl Mørck and his odd and intriguing Department Q (see our review of the first book in the series, “Mercy”). The books in this series are all excellent, so full of suspense that it is hard to sit still while reading them, very well plotted and written, and full of humor to boot!

The case in this book starts with a message in a bottle that reaches the eccentric commissioner. It is an old message from two boys in dire straits. A wonderful tale!

I hope the publishers in the UK and the US move quickly on this series, as I am sure it will be a huge hit. Also, I hope they this time publish the series in the right sequence.

A well deserved prize for Jussi Adler-Olsen! Good for Denmark too – it is now 11 years since the last time a Dane won this prestigious award; Leif Davidsen won the award in 1999.