Review: In Dust and Ashes by Anne Holt tr. Anne Bruce

In Dust and Ashes by Anne Holt translated by Anne Bruce, November 2017, 400 pages, Corvus, ISBN: 1782398821

Reviewed by Lynn Harvey.
(Read more of Lynn's reviews for Euro Crime here.)

Oslo, Norway: January 2016
Kjell Bonsaksen is looking forward to his retirement from the police and his move to Provence. Squeezing ketchup onto the hot dog, he glances through the window towards the petrol pumps as a man approaches the entrance doors. Their eyes meet and Bonsaksen freezes mid-bite. The man fills his cup at the coffee dispenser and as he passes Bonsaksen, he softly says: “You knew I was innocent. You did nothing.”

Oslo: December 2001
Jonas has continuously recalculated the chronology: if he hadn’t had that extra coffee; if he hadn’t cut his hand and allowed little Dina to bandage it; if he hadn’t fumbled the keys or stopped to sort out the junk mail in the mailbox; those misplaced seconds that led to the fatal timing of a little girl running out into the road and stumbling. He had screamed as he tried to push the wheel of the car from his daughter’s body and he had screamed “My fault” at the bewildered driver, “Mine.”

Oslo: January 2016
Henrik Holme is blocked and jostled by the waiting crowd of journalists as he pushes Hanne’s wheelchair out of the courtroom. Flash photography and shouted questions gradually subside as the journalists examine their phones; the news of the death of Iselin Havorn has pushed the Extremist Trial’s verdict off their agenda.

These days Henrik has his own office and reports to Chief Inspector Sorensen. From seven in the morning until ten at night, he shuttles between this office and his mentor Hanne's apartment, should she need him. Now it is evening and he is staring despondently at his empty in-tray when a burly man darkens the doorway and places an old blue ring-binder on his desk, insisting that Henrik and Hanne look into the case.

Henrik explains that he cannot take a case unless it is referred by the Chief, no matter how much he sympathises over a criminal getting away. The man interrupts, “He didn’t get away,” and tells Henrik that he, Superintendent Bonsaksen, cannot enjoy his retirement until … well. The man was convicted and served time. He never fought the charge of killing his wife. But Bonsaksen always doubted the verdict. When, the other day, he bumped into the man – his eyes were … dead. That man lost everything, Bonsaksen tells Henrik. Jonas Abrahamsen deserves another chance.

Confined to a wheelchair, Hanne Wilhelmsen advises the Oslo police on cold cases from the apartment she shares with her wife and daughter and is assisted by Detective Henrik Holme, a talented but isolated investigator. Hanne is between official cases when she becomes obsessed with the suicide of wealthy businesswoman and blogger Iselin Havorn. Havorn (meaning Sea Eagle) was a successful Marxist-Leninist journalist who, after becoming ill with what she decided was mercury poisoning and electromagnetic sensitivity, had turned towards alternative cures, an alternative lifestyle, conspiracy theories and eventually right-wing nationalism. Her wealth had been founded upon business interests in her wife’s herbal cure company. Recently she became notorious when unmasked as the writer of a virulently racist blog and her sudden death with its suicide note is a media sensation. But Hanne cannot believe that a woman such as Havorn would have killed herself.

Meanwhile Henrik becomes equally concerned by the guilty verdict that convicted Jonas Abrahamsen of the murder of his wife on New Year’s Eve two years after their daughter’s death. The couple were divorcing and Henrik thinks that the traumatised man’s mistake had been to deny visiting his wife on that New Year’s Eve. When Jonas was identified as the figure on the path in the background of a neighbour’s party photograph, with no other suspect in the shooting of his ex-wife, he was convicted. With no fight left in him to appeal, he went to prison for eight years.

Now Henrik and Hanne are at odds with each other. Each is convinced that their cases need investigation, each disagrees with the other’s preoccupation but neither have official permission to investigate. Then everything, it appears, must be put on hold when the child of a national lottery winner is abducted.


IN DUST AND ASHES is described by its publisher as the tenth and “final instalment” in Anne Holt’s “Hanne Wilhelmsen” crime series. An undoubted giant of Nordic crime fiction, Holt has a fine reputation and a host of fans. I have failed to keep up with Hanne since the earlier novels – not following her as a character and the twists, turns and shooting that have led to her confinement to a wheelchair. Nor have I got to know Henrik Holme until now. Therefore I’ll admit to finding the going a bit difficult. The novel unfolds from the working relationship of Hanne and Henrik. Hanne appears to be withdrawing from all social contact other than with Henrik and her family whilst Henrik struggles to modify his compulsive tics and obsessions and to draw closer to “fitting in”. As the plot throws it spotlight on Jonas – it seems as if most of this book’s characters are expressing psychological misery and alienation (with due cause you could say) and this leaves me with the uneasy feeling that Holt has become the queen of bleak. Except for the happy retiree Bonsaksen, whose insistence on re-examining the murder conviction of Jonas provides the impetus for unfolding an ingenious puzzle of a plot.

A thorough police procedural and a tour de force in character study and plotting, IN DUST AND ASHES eventually develops suspense and pace and hurtles towards its ending. But it left me unsure of my feelings about it all. I don’t mind my Nordic Noir being dark but I’m not too sure of almost (and I do say almost) relentlessly bleak.

Lynn Harvey, November 2017

Review: Ordeal by Jorn Lier Horst tr. Anne Bruce

Today's review is again courtesy of CrimeTime's Bob Cornwell.

Ordeal by Jorn Lier Horst, tr. Anne Bruce (320 pages, March 2016, Sandstone Press Ltd, ISBN: 1910124745)

After the international developments of THE CAVEMAN, more domestic issues are at the forefront of the latest book to feature Chief Inspector William Wisting and his daughter Line. An opening chapter finds Wisting contemplating his relationships with the three principal women in his life (but only briefly, as regular readers might expect): his current boss Assistant Chief of Police Christine Thiis, fifteen years his junior and so far careful to keep her professional distance; his pregnant daughter Line now established in a nearby house, as she struggles (with occasional help from her father) to expunge any trace of Viggo Hansen, its previous occupant (discovered four months dead in the previous book); and Suzanne, until recently a regular feature in Wisting’s life, but who has now moved on and is running a café in the centre of Larvik, their mutual home town. Also contemplating a new start in Larvik is another single mother, Sofie Lund née Mandt, grand-daughter of a prominent local criminal. He’s now dead, and Sofie (along with her daughter, the infant Maja) is moving into his old house which, nineteen years before, she had vowed never to re-enter.

But it is Suzanne that kicks off the major plot line with her report of an unusual reaction from a patron of her café to a newspaper report of the latest case causing Wisting’s brow to furrow: the disappearance “without trace” six months ago of local taxi-driver Jens Hummel. Meanwhile the ever practical Line, having left, maybe permanently, the pressure of her job as a journalist, and whilst dreading the impending birth, is set on giving her child the best (rural) start in life. Out shopping she is recognised by Sofie. Not only were they at primary school together but Sofie is a fan of her work as a journalist. Clearly a friendship is destined, and besides, there is a mysterious safe in Sofie’s grandfather’s house to be explored.

As I suggested, a low-key entry in the series, I guess deliberately. Arguably there are too many crime novels intent on delivering shock and awe. This one proceeds calmly, though with steadily mounting tension, particularly as an ancient pistol is found in Sofie’s grandfather’s safe, and it proves to have been used in a recent murder, one about to be prosecuted in court. Horst’s emphasis is as usual on Wisting’s team and their meticulous police work, Line contributing the occasional, often crucial development. The process is never less than fascinating.

But if you were hoping that with fireworks largely missing from the major narrative (though some actual fireworks play a key role in the story), Wisting might have time to reveal a little more about himself, you could be disappointed. Some fleeting memories of his dead wife, some philosophising with Suzanne over a quote from Nietzsche is all. His weary resignation is also revealed, rather than anger, over recent changes in Norwegian society. A little more emotion – and perhaps some humour amongst the police team – might lend the Wisting books more depth and render them a trifle more sympathetic.

And will Wisting redeem his vow to Line to be present at the birth of his first grandchild? I’m taking no bets, and you’ll have to read the book to find out...

Bob Cornwell
March 2016

Review: The Caveman by Jørn Lier Horst tr. Anne Bruce

Today's review is courtesy of CrimeTime's Bob Cornwell who I hope can be persuaded to contribute again!

The Caveman by Jørn Lier Horst, tr. Anne Bruce (352 pages, February 2015, Sandstone Press Ltd, ISBN: 1910124044)

Back at work after his brief suspension from duty in THE HUNTING DOGS, Horst’s knockout 2013 Glass Key winner, Chief Inspector William Wisting leafs through the case file of Viggo Hansen, whose miraculously preserved body had been found, finally, in front of his TV set, an estimated four months dead. Disturbingly he had been a neighbour of Wisting’s, living just three houses away. A routine investigation has revealed no suspicious circumstances, and Wisting is first inclined to allow the report to be filed. Just then, Wisting’s computer beeps and another case calls. The file remains on the top of the filing tray.

But the death of Viggo Hansen proves to be of more immediate interest to Wisting’s daughter Line, an investigative journalist for VG, a prominent Norwegian tabloid. Christmas looms and her own fragmenting family is on her mind. Line would like to know just how the shrivelled body of Viggo Hansen remained undiscovered for four months, especially in a country deemed (in recent UN reports) as one of the best in which to live. UK readers may be reminded of Dreams of a Life, Carol Morley’s memorable 2011 documentary, reconstructing the life of Joyce Vincent, three years dead in a north London bedsit. Meanwhile Wisting’s own investigation develops quickly. A plastic folder found on a corpse discovered in a ‘pick your own Christmas tree’ plantation yields fingerprints identified as belonging to someone ‘Wanted by the FBI’. Ten Most Wanted? Yes. Serial Killer? Yes.

This is the eighth book featuring Wisting and his daughter, the fourth since Karen Meek and Maxine Clark alerted me to DREGS (UK, 2011), the first of Anne Bruce’s crisp English translations. Have no fear of entering the series at this late stage. Sandstone have provided, since CLOSED FOR WINTER (UK, 2013) the second title in English, a helpful two-page profile of series developments to date. And with Horst recently achieving his first review in the (UK) mainstream press, his time might have come.

That hint of serial killer, though some hearts might sink at this overworked development (they include mine), probably won’t do him any harm. Serial killers are, of course, rare in Nordic countries, but ex-policeman Horst, scrupulous in his regard for reality, simply imports the phenomenon (like Arne Dahl before him). At the same time of course, he relishes the opportunity to take his procedural expertise in a new direction. No spoilers here, by the way. I’m giving nothing away here that isn’t revealed in the first sixty pages. (I’ll leave the reader to uncover the chilling concept of the “caveman” for themselves.)

The two plot strands, of course, complement each other. The cracks in fragmenting modern societies are those in which society’s less desirable elements also live and operate. And, like HUNTING DOGS, those two strands combine to create a well-plotted and surprising narrative of uncommon urgency. Horst writes in pacy, dispassionate prose, the narrative like DOGS divided equally (and a trifle predictably in the middle section of the book) between Wisting’s investigation and that of his daughter. Wisting is observant, methodical, in total command of his team; Line is her father’s daughter, but this time seeking not only facts, but the emotional truth of the life she is investigating .

Some readers may be disappointed that whilst Line returns home to live with her father (more easily to explore the life of Hansen, his recent neighbour), the relationship between Line and her father, whilst instinctively protective, remains one of cool (though growing) mutual respect. In fact, consistent with the theme of the book, there is more than a hint that the rules that govern increasingly complex professional lives, may also serve to encourage the space between people.

It’s a thought-provoking book – and, as in the gripping climax, an exciting one, as the two investigations merge in a well-engineered and entirely unexpected way. Then, if you haven’t already, do go back and read THE HUNTING DOGS.

Bob Cornwell
April 2015

Review: Death of the Demon by Anne Holt tr. Anne Bruce

Death of the Demon by Anne Holt, tr. Anne Bruce (September 2013, Corvus, ISBN: 0857892274)

DEATH OF THE DEMON is the third book in the Hanne Wilhelmsen series. First published in Norwegian in 1995 it had its English language debut courtesy of Anne Bruce's translation in 2013.

Hanne has been promoted to Chief Inspector in the Oslo police and she has recruited her best friend and former undercover operative, Billy T, to be her right-hand man.

Their first serious case is the murder of the manager of a foster home. She has been stabbed in her office, late at night, and the only real suspects are the staff and the resident children. In addition, the newest arrival at the home, Olav a very troubled twelve-year-old, has run away on the very night of the murder. Is he involved in the murder or did he see something? Either way he has to be found.

Hanne's team of four officers have to investigate the murder whilst other parts of the force try to track down Olav. As well as the police point of view, parts of the story are told from Olav's perspective as well as thoughts from Olav's mum on her son's odd personality.

As well as the murder investigation, Hanne starts to ever so slightly relax her obsessive secrecy over her eighteen year relationship with Cecilie – only two people at work know about it at the beginning of the book.

This is a classic whodunnit with a limited suspect pool and several red herrings. It's a fairly short book, by modern standards, which held my interest throughout. And it has a shocking resolution. It's a shame this series has taken so long to reach English language readers however DEATH OF THE DEMON doesn't feel too dated. Computers are being used and Billy T even has a mobile phone.

I enjoyed DEATH OF THE DEMON and so went straight on to the next and latest book available in English, THE LION'S MOUTH (2014).

New Reviews: Chatterton, Craig, Hannah, Holt, Lawton, Leather, Rickman, Shepherd, Yates

This week's set of reviews, added to the Euro Crime website today, is a mixture of new reviews and a catch-up of those posted directly on the blog in the last two weeks, so you may have read some of them before if you're a regular :).

Keep up to date with Euro Crime by following the blog and/or liking the Euro Crime Facebook page.

New Reviews

JF reviews Down Among the Dead Men by Ed Chatterton, the second in the DCI Frank Keane series, set in Liverpool and this time also LA;

Geoff Jones reviews James Craig's The Circus, the fourth in the DI John Carlyle series set in London;

Amanda Gillies reviews Monument to Murder by Mari Hannah, the fourth in the DCI Kate Daniels series set in Northumberland;

Lynn Harvey reviews Anne Holt's Blessed Are Those Who Thirst tr. Anne Bruce, the second outing for Oslo's Detective Inspector Hanne Wilhelmsen;

Norman Price reviews Then We Take Berlin by John Lawton, a non-Troy book which "...certainly meets the Troy standard of eccentricity, humour, meticulous historical research and readability";

Terry Halligan reviews Stephen Leather's True Colours, the tenth in the "Spider" series;

Rich Westwood reviews The Magus of Hay by Phil Rickman, the twelfth book in the Merrily Watkins series;

Terry also reviews Lynn Shepherd's A Treacherous Likeness the third in the Charles Maddox series, this time involving a mystery around the Shelleys

and Amanda also reviews Christopher J Yates's debut Black Chalk, starting her  review with: "Oh this book is seriously good".


Previous reviews can be found in the review archive.

Forthcoming titles can be found by author or date or by category, here along with releases by year.

Review: Blessed Are Those Who Thirst by Anne Holt tr. Anne Bruce

Blessed Are Those Who Thirst by Anne Holt translated by Anne Bruce, March 2013, 240 pages, Corvus, ISBN: 0857892266

Reviewed by Lynn Harvey.
(Read more of Lynn's reviews for Euro Crime here.)

Hanne Wilhelmsen borrowed a flashlight. In the middle of the bloody site, someone had placed a little strip of cardboard, like a gangway, without any rhyme or reason. She stepped carefully across as far as it reached, confirming that here too there was an eight-digit number scratched on the blood-smeared wall...

Early morning, May, Oslo.
Detective Inspector Hanne Wilhelmsen stands in the middle of the shed once used to store wood, it is now empty – except for the blood. Hanne plays her flashlight over the smears and marks on the wall. She can just make out a daubed eight-digit number. Despite its slaughterhouse appearance, the shed is not yet a crime scene. For that they need a victim. Oslo is in the middle of an unseasonal heat wave and its police force is in the middle of an equally overwhelming crime wave: three murders and sixteen rapes in six weeks. With the press having a field day and the public complaining about “police incompetence”, a week after the bloody scene in the shed Hanne is taking stock of an almost identical one. This time it is a parking garage. Another eight-digit number smeared on the wall. A third killing scene is found and these events are dubbed the “Saturday Night Massacres”. But one Saturday night sees a young women brutally raped in her own apartment. She is traumatised and unable to describe her attacker; she cannot bring his face to mind. And her father is shocked. For how can he help his daughter? How can he protect her? Although the police team interview the girl's neighbours no one tells them anything useful. Hanne politely accepts tea and stale cake from one old man but he too is uninformative. When Hanne leaves, the old man resumes his window seat and carries on thinking about the tall, well-built man he saw getting into the car that night. Taking off like a bat out of hell...

Anne Holt began her legal career in the Oslo police department – so she is no stranger to the workings of the Norwegian legal system. BLESSED ARE THOSE WHO THIRST is the second in her successful crime series featuring police detective Hanne Wilhelmsen. First published in 1994, almost twenty years ago, its themes remain undated; an under-resourced police force battling rising crime and social pressures which this time include resentment against immigrants and asylum seekers. Hanne's team is presented with a series of gruesome, bloodied killing-sites in which not all the blood is human. The challenge of these crime scenes without victims is eventually broken by the discovery of a woman's body. But they also have to track down a brutal rapist and whilst the police struggle to find a clue in the rape case, others take up the hunt for the rapist. In Holt's first Hanne Wilhelmsen novel BLIND GODDESS and in this second book there are aspects of the state system that stand open to flaws and corruption; power, powerlessness, revenge, and victim-hood are all threads that gather into the plot's exciting conclusion. Holt also continues to explore the lives of Hanne and her fellow police team members. Hanne is struggling to keep her private life (her fifteen-year-long lesbian relationship with live-in partner Cecilie) a secret, to the chagrin of Cecilie herself. And she starts to build a closer relationship with her fellow team members: undercover policemen Billy T and police attorney Hakon Sand who, involved with a married woman, is ironically someone else with a secret life.

I found a coolness in the writing that was initially off-putting. But the three Holt books that I have read so far have each had a different translator (perhaps because of the long time it has taken for her books to appear in English translation) so I have found it hard to identify Holt's voice as such. How much is the writer's voice affected by different translators? This edition of BLESSED ARE THOSE WHO THIRST is translated by Anne Bruce who has also translated the third in the series, DEATH OF THE DEMON. Whatever the answer to my question, I think this is a book of substance and that Holt is an important part of the Scandinavian crime fiction scene. I shall also long relish the striking image of a sleepless Hanne, riding around the night-time streets of Oslo on her rose-pink Harley-Davidson.

Lynn Harvey, December 2013.