Thomas Enger

This is the start of your new Nordic Noir obsession!

Two of Norways best loved crime writers come together to create something extremely special and bring us the unique due that is Blix and Ramm. With a crack hot double team and a hunt for a serial killer that has a flair for the dramatic, this book will have you racing through the pages as fast as the body count increases!

This is the first book of a new series featuring Blix and Ramm, who are now one of my favourite duo’s, and judging from this one it is going to be nothing short of outstanding!

When former athlete, turn novelist, Sonja Nordstrom fails to attend the high-profile launch of her much-anticipated autobiography, Blix finds himself heading up the missing persons investigation, which soon escalates as more high profile people go missing or turn up dead. What started off as a missing person investigation soon turns into the hunt for a serial killer.

Emma Ramm is a celebrity blogger, writing pieces for a online news company so when it comes to her attention that Sonja didn’t show up to her mornings appointments she decides to show up at the celebrities house and it is from there she knows something isn’t right. With signs of a struggle taking place inside the front door of Sonja’s house, Emma phones the police and this is where the unlikely duo meet.

As they are both looking into and covering the same cases they slowly begin to trust each other and it is whilst sharing that a piece of the puzzle falls into place, but now, can they pull together to stop this killer before any more lives are lost and before the killer reaches his finale?

Packed to the brim with some really great, memorable characters, extremely clever plot lines, twists and turns, this is set to be the start of something spectacular!

Crime fiction, police procedurals readers are going to love this book and even if you have not been a fan of foreign crime fiction before, I urge you to give this one ago – you won’t be disappointed, it is one of my favourite books so far this year.… (more)

Vorab: Ich habe nicht das Buch gelesen, sondern das Hörbuch gehört, in dem das gesamte Buch gelesen wurde.

Der Sprecher in Hörbuch hat absolt hervorragende Arbeit geleistet, aber ich denke, dass es nicht nur daran lag, dass ich die Geschichte absolut spannend fand. Von der ersten bis zur letzten Minute wurde einem nicht langweilig und ich war erst recht begeistert, als ich entdeckt habe, dass dies der Auftakt zu einer Serie ist. Ich kann es kaum erwarten, den nächsten Band zu hören oder zu lesen.

Für Krimi-Fans absolut empfehlenswert!

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Many thanks to Atria Books for the ARC via NetGalley.

A fine, wonderfully paced thriller. The use of the present tense makes the action immediate and suspended right before our eyes. The chapters are short, like pieces of flash fiction, and the swift switches between points of view set the pace and make the book very hard to put down.
The insight into police procedures is enjoyable, and the various characters and different plots come together eventually in a rather satisfying way.
What is particularly pleasing is how the main quest of journalist Henning Juul is interwoven throughout the current investigation, so that there is insight into the big picture even for readers (myself included) who haven't yet read the previous books in the series.
Not only does the course of the investigation seem extremely plausible, but the inner monologues of the characters portray their personal and professional struggles with a gritty realism, an effect stunningly complemented by the rainy, grey, urban atmosphere of Oslo.
With a proper dose of red herrings, deduction, and moments of revelation, the eventual resolution is relatively rewarding and the loose ends are few and related to the desire to know what happens to the characters afterwards, and not to the case at hand.
A gripping, entertaining read that successfully combines the themes of crime and investigation and the cruel world of politics and incorporates them into an enticing whole.… (more)