Who Done It?

This slang reference for mysteries will take on added significance if you read this twisty tale, What Never Happens, from Scandinavian Anne Holt, set in Oslo, Norway. This is another totally new author for me--but I just got back from ALA with a box and a bag full of advanced reading copies (ARCs) and I was in the mood for a mystery, so I grabbed this one. Apparently Ms. Holt has published an earlier work (variously known as Punishment or What is Mine) starring this pair of detectives, Johanne Vik and Adam Stubo, but now they are married with a brand new baby, significantly impinging on Johanne's ability to work on the case. Johanne has been trained as a profiler by the FBI, although she seems determined to keep that chapter of her life buried; with famous people dying in bizarre and symbolic ways, however, her skills are sorely needed. Holt has come up with an unusual and yet totally logical character for her killer and the ending will just leave you creeped out. This author is compared to Henning Mankell, a Swedish author of detective procedurals, but he is also someone unfamiliar to me. Maybe I need to pursue some of these Scandinavian authors a bit more, although the ones I have read (Giants in the Earth by O.E. Rolvaag, Smilla's Sense of Snow by Peter Hoeg, some of the books by Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo.) are very dark. Must be the climate and the long winters....maybe not the best reading for an Oregon winter, or maybe just perfect!