I see I forgot to review the second book in Jørn Lier Horst and Thomas Enger’s new detective/journalist mystery series, starring Oslo police inspector Alexander Blix and writer Emma Ramm.
Smoke Screen opens tragically, with a bang, as a bomb goes off during Oslo’s New Year’s Eve celebration. Emma, who was left with a phobic fear of “countdowns” due to the horrific case she just finished, has gone to Oslo harbor for the midnight fireworks, just to face the big countdown involved. A tragic choice – her new boyfriend, who had come down to be with her, is killed in the explosion.
Another victim of that bombing is a woman named Patricia Semplass, who has been sought by the police for ten years, as a suspect in the kidnapping of her own daughter. Meanwhile, her husband, in prison for killing a man involved in the kidnapping, has received a photograph of a young girl in the mail. He is convinced it’s his daughter, who hasn’t been seen since the kidnapping.
Blix and Emma both get caught up in an investigation that just seems to grow more convoluted and contradictory as it goes. In the end, both their lives will be endangered, and a tragic choice will be made by the least likely person.
Smoke Screen wasn’t bad. I still don’t like this series as well as Horst’s Wisting books, but there were genuine surprises, and the attitude here remains more positive than in your general run of Scandinavian Noirs, so I give it a thumbs up.
As I never tire of telling you, I’m not a huge fan of Scandinavian Noir as a literary genre. My samplings indicate that most such books ought to be classed as depressants and dispensed only with a doctor’s prescription. However, I make an exception for Jørn Lier Horst’s William Wisting novels. (I first discovered Wisting, as I also never tire of telling you, while helping to translate the Wisting TV series, now available on the Sundance Channel).
It’s been a while since a new Wisting book has been released in English, though. But I was happy to discover that author Horst has teamed up with another Norwegian mystery author, Thomas Enger, to produce a new police series, about an Oslo detective named Alexander Blix. The first book in the series is Death Deserved.
Alexander Blix is a top-notch detective, but somewhat the worse for wear. Years ago he was involved in a shooting that’s still studied at the police academy. He was exonerated, but his career has always been under a shadow. His former partner (and former friend) is now his boss.
When a legendary female long-distance runner disappears from her home, almost the only clue left behind is a race number (1) taped to the TV. Since the woman had recently published a memoir entitled, Always Number One, that number seems to have something to do with the criminal’s motives.
Over the next few days famous people start disappearing or being murdered all around the city, each of them associated with a particular number. It looks like somebody is doing a macabre countdown.
The first person on the original crime scene was a young celebrity reporter, Emma Ramm. Suddenly she’s covering her very first hard news story – and Blix can’t resist helping her out a little. He has a secret reason for this, which the reader will learn in time.
Meanwhile, Blix is dealing with having a celebrity in his own family. His daughter, of whom he has seen little since her mother left him, is currently a contestant on a big Norwegian reality show along the lines of Big Brother. And gradually he begins to suspect that the celebrity-hunting murderer may have his eye on whoever wins that show.
I liked Death Deserved, though not as much as the Wisting books. It suffered (in my opinion) from the natural defects of the criminal mastermind story – this sort of thing never happens in the real world, and gets pretty implausible as the plot works itself out.
But the final showdown was exciting and well crafted, with a certain emotional resonance that pleased me.
There’s one excursion into the world of big evangelicalism – a sequence involving a venal celebrity pastor. Not surprisingly, they don’t get the jargon right – but the man’s a plain grifter, so I suppose it doesn’t matter much. I was pleased that the translator, Anne Bruce, translated “prest” as “pastor” rather than “priest,” which is my preferred interpretation. In fact, the translation as a whole earned my coveted admiration.
I also note, with appreciation, that the translator got a thank you in the Acknowledgements (which are otherwise too long and too cute).
