I'm Traveling Alone

Narrator Laura Paton's quiet, controlled delivery undergoes subtle changes for different characters--male, female, young, and old--yet all are conveyed with startling and convincing distinction. A 6-year-old girl is found hanging from a tree with a sign around her neck. More follow. The Norwegian violent crime squad in Oslo, led by Holger Munch, struggles to identify the killer. They need the singularly talented Mia Kruger to find a break in the case, but Kruger is battling demons of her own. The plotting is clever, and twists and turns ensnare the unsuspecting listener in the story's quiet threads. As the pace quickens, the last few hours fly by. Everything else is put hold, including breathing. C.A.T. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine

November 30, 2015
Bjørk (the pen name of Norwegian novelist Frode Sander Øien) makes his U.S. debut with this brooding serial killer thriller. Oslo detectives Holger Munch, a math nerd who dotes on his six-year-old granddaughter, and Mia Krüger, a brilliant profiler who has burned out on her disheartening job and is on the verge of self-destruction, are on the trail of a murderer, whose first victim, a six-year-old girl, was found hanging from a tree by a jump rope, perfectly bathed and groomed, dressed in doll clothing. Similar killings follow. Munch and Krüger realize that they’re dealing with a resourceful perpetrator who plans meticulously and seems always to be a step ahead of them. Krüger eventually discovers that the killer may have a personal vendetta, and when Munch’s granddaughter is threatened, she and Munch must gaze into their own pasts for crucial clues. Bjørk doles out characterization and exposition in multiparagraph lumps, but harrowing and enthralling action sequences more than compensate.