Book Review: Stigma, by Jorn Lier Horst and Thomas Enger, trs, Rosie Hedger

Description

Alexander Blix is a broken man. Convicted for avenging his daughter’s death, he is now being held in one of Norway’s high-security prisons. Inside, the other prisoners take every opportunity to challenge and humiliate the former police investigator.

On the outside, Blix’s former colleagues have begun the hunt for a terrifying killer. Walter Kroos has escaped from prison in Germany and is making his way north. The only lead established by the police is that Kroos has a friend in Blix’s prison ward. And now they need Blix’s help.

Journalist Emma Ramm is one of Blix’s few visitors, and she becomes his ally as he struggles to connect the link between past and present, between the world inside and outside the prison walls. And as he begins to piece things together, he identifies a woodland community in Norway where deeply scarred inhabitants foster deadly secrets … secrets that may be the unravelling of everyone involved.

My Review

Thanks to Anne for organising this tour and to the team at Orenda Books for sending me a copy of this novel.

Oh, my goodness me! I’ve stayed up way to late! I sat down after tea on Saturday to get a few chapters read and it’s the early hours of Sunday morning! Finished in a single sitting.

Where to start?

Alexander Blix is in prison for 12 years after killing the man who murdered Iselin. He’s not doing well. One particular prisoner, Jarl Inge Ree, really doesn’t like him. Outside, Emma Ramm is doubting her career choice, but when she hears that a German murderer, Walter Kroos, has escaped from prison and may be on his way to Norway, she is thrown back into investigative journalism. Blix is drawn into the investigation when his former boss and friend asks for help. Ree’s name was found amongst the papers in the Kroos’ cell, and the police in Oslo need to know why and if he’s a danger to Norway.

Between Blix and Ramm, they discover secrets from the summer of 2004 when a German family travelled to Norway for their summer holiday, a boy fell in love with a girl, and jealousy started a chain of events that ruined lives and killed people.

Events evolve as the days until Ree is released adn returns to his home town, where Emma is investigating, and apparently stirring up memories people would rather forget. Particularly for the local policeman.

Things speed up when Emma sees a man trying to dispose of a body in a midnight lake and Alexander gets a days leave to go to his daughter’s grave on the day Ree is released. What follows involves kidnapping, attempted multiple murder, and people turning up in the nick of time.

And we still don’t find out if Blix wins his appeal…

I need to know!

I couldn’t stop turning the pages. The contrast between Emma being out on her own, without much back-up in a place with secretive and hostile locals, and Alexander being in prison, unable to help her, and needing to get information from a man who really doesn’t want to help him, really ratchets up the tension as the days count down.

Just when I thought I had it figured out new information pops up and adds to the complex story being woven, of teenage jealousy, rape, abuse of a young person with a learning disability, murder, long-held secrets, and manipulation. The damage done to two of the characters by events in 2004 reverberate through their lives and completely alter the course their lives might have taken is so well plotted and thought through.

The depiction of the rape that sparks all future events is sensitively done but horrifying to read, especially as details are revealed of family cover-up and police corruption, the manipulation of the perpetrator and the loss of agency for the victim.

I believe the theme of this book is the unexpected consequences that occur from seemingly trivial things – like teenagers teasing a gullible, vulnerable young man because they are jealous of another teenager. We always assume that some people are just bad but there’s a reason things happen, antecedents to events, that are hidden by families, communities and time.

The initial misdirection, and subsequent red herrings, are superbly well placed and used to make the reader look the wrong way, and the final events are tense and action-packed. You definitely need the rather sedate epilogue to get over it, although we are still left with the mystery of Blix’s future freedom, a little hook for the next book.

I’ve read all of the Blix and Ramm books available from Orenda and I’ve enjoyed them all. I love the relationship the pair have with each other, one that is parental rather than romantic, based on respect and care for each other. I enjoy the plotting and twists, the unexpected relationships that form during the narrative and the structures of the novels – they aren’t straightforward.

Another good one from Lier Horst and Enger. Highly recommended to Nordic crime fans.

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ABOUT LIER HORST & ENGER
Jørn Lier Horst and Thomas Enger are both internationally bestselling Norwegian authors.

Jørn Lier Horst first rose to literary fame with his no. 1 bestselling William Wisting series. A former investigator in the Norwegian police, Horst imbues all his works with an unparalleled realism and suspense.

Thomas Enger is the journalist-turned-author behind the internationally acclaimed Henning Juul series. Enger’s trademark is his dark, gritty voice
paired with key social messages and tight plotting. Besides writing fiction for both adults and young adults, Enger also works as a music composer.

Death Deserved, the first book in the bestselling Blix and Ramm series, was Jørn Lier Horst and Thomas Enger’s first co-written thriller and was followed by Smoke Screen and Unhinged