In Dust and Ashes

March 1, 2018
The 10th and reportedly last of Holt's novels about Oslo police inspector Hanne Wilhelmsen ushers in 2016 with news of a 12-year-old murder that might just be a suicide and a brand-new suicide that smells more and more like murder."You knew I was innocent," Jonas Abrahamsen tells retiring Superintendent Kjell Bonsaksen when their paths cross at a highway rest stop. "And yet you did nothing." Two years after the accidental death of their toddler, Dina, began a death spiral for Jonas' marriage to car sales manager Anna Abrahamsen, he was arrested for Anna's murder and served eight years in prison. And he's right: Bonsaksen always had his doubts about Jonas' guilt but could come up with no other suspects in Anna's fatal shooting. So Bonsaksen dumps his files on the lap of Officer Henrik Holme, and he naturally shares them with Hanne, whose own shooting (Odd Numbers, 2017, etc.) has reduced her to a wheelchair and the title of consultant. Despite its vintage, Henrik is keen on the Abrahamsen case, but Hanne's more interested in the recent death of Iselin Havrn, whose sketchy dietary-supplement empire left her plenty of time to air her rabid anti-immigration views online. Despite the presence of a suicide note and the absence of any evidence implicating anyone else, Hanne quickly convinces herself that Iselin was murdered. It's not nearly so easy to convince Henrik, and the mentor and her gofer repeatedly clash, largely over whether a mentor's allowed to treat her colleague as a gofer. As they bicker over cases old and new, Holt focuses more and more uncomfortably on Jonas, a sympathetic, agonizingly troubled man who, unable to avoid the loss of everything that made his life worth living, resolves that he won't be the only one to lose it all.Despite some climactic surprises that aren't, Holt closes her series with one of its strongest entries, combining a generous sensitivity to all with an unblinking portrait of a franchise sleuth who, pressed to defend the corners she's cut, acknowledges, "I've become more pragmatic with age."

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Starred review from March 12, 2018
At the start of Holt’s elegiac 10th and final novel featuring Oslo chief inspector Hanne Wilhelmsen (after 2017’s Odd Numbers), veteran police detective Kjell Bonsaksen, who’s about to retire, brings a possible miscarriage of justice to the attention of Hanne’s eccentric disciple, Henrik Holme. In 2004, Jonas Abrahamsen, whose marriage fell apart after the death of his three-year-old daughter in a car accident in 2001, was convicted of his ex-wife’s murder. Kjell believes that Jonas, who has served 12 years in prison, is innocent. Meanwhile, Hanne, a gifted and unorthodox investigator, suspects that the death of far-right activist Iselin Havørn is not the suicide it appears. Under Hanne’s guidance, Henrik gradually grows into maturity as a genuine humanitarian, while Hanne, despite her physical limitations due to a serious line-of-duty injury, digs into Havørn’s background, shedding light on right-wing European movements with their anti-Muslim “criminal, capitalist conspiracy” theories. For Hanne and Henrik, both convincing complex characters, all suffering comes down to the “good old sins”: money, sex, and revenge. Readers will be sorry to see the last of them. Agent: Niclas Salomonsson, Salomonsson Agency (Sweden).

April 1, 2018
One case bedevils Oslo Police Superintendent Kjell Bonsaksen at the end of his career: the conviction of Jonas Abrahamsen for the murder of Jonas' wife, Anna, in 2004, two years after the tragic accidental death of their three-year-old daughter. So Bonsaksen takes the file of what he considers a case of miscarried justice to Detective Henrik Holme, prot�g� of legendary detective Hanne Wilhelmsen, now a special adviser on cold cases. While Holme, a celebrity after his work on terrorist bombings in 2014, sees indications of Abrahamsen's innocence, Wilhelmsen is keen to look instead into the recent suicide of deplored right-winger Iselin Hav�rn, which she believes was more likely a murder despite evidence to the contrary. As the two detectives pursue their respective assignments, the cases link in a surprising fashion. In this tenth and final book in the Hanne Wilhelmsen series, Wilhelmsen is as intuitive, and prickly, as ever, as Holt explores further the relationship between Wilhelmsen and Holme. For fans of Jo Nesb�, who has noted Holt's primacy in Norwegian crime fiction, and of the genre in general.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)