Death of the Demon

Starred review from April 29, 2013
Edgar-finalist Holt’s stellar third Hanne Wilhelmsen novel (after 2012’s Blessed Are Those Who Thirst) finds the Oslo police detective uncomfortable with her six-month-old promotion to chief inspector, a dully managerial position that’s put her willy-nilly in the thick of the professional intrigue she deplores. Now faced with the murder of the formidable administrator of a foster children’s group home, the detective must also confront her own troubling demons. Hanne’s close friendship with her flamboyant assistant detective, Billy T., is making her question her values, while Cecilie, the partner with whom Hanne has shared her love and life since adolescence, wants the couple to have a child—a desire Hanne has denied for nearly 17 years. Holt also relentlessly explores the agonies of a mother unable to manage a monstrously brain-damaged 12-year-old boy—and the tragic ironies implicit in a society priding itself on cradle-to-grave welfare that condemns its most powerless and needy to inevitable disaster.