A story about corruption and doping offences in the Norwegian cross country skiing organisation, a disgraced lawyer with a gambling addiction and a vendetta simmering since early childhood.
I was a big fan of Anne Holt's previous series of books featuring disabled police investigator, Hanne Wilhelmsen, so was surprised to find myself disappointed with the first half of A Grave For Two. The writing is as good as ever and the translation near perfect but I found myself confused by all the different characters and storylines and frustrated that I didn't really understand how they were connected. Who is the man in the room that keeps getting smaller? What is the manuscript? Who is the homeless paranoid man that Selma has befriended? The multitude of strange Norwegian names and places didn't help either.
I decided on two occasions to abandon this book part way through and I even read another book in the meantime before picking it up again and reading to the end.
I'm glad I persisted - all the pieces of the puzzle made perfect sense at the end but I think the author needs to provide more plot cohesion to keep the reader interested during the first three quarters of this long book..
I was a big fan of Anne Holt's previous series of books featuring disabled police investigator, Hanne Wilhelmsen, so was surprised to find myself disappointed with the first half of A Grave For Two. The writing is as good as ever and the translation near perfect but I found myself confused by all the different characters and storylines and frustrated that I didn't really understand how they were connected. Who is the man in the room that keeps getting smaller? What is the manuscript? Who is the homeless paranoid man that Selma has befriended? The multitude of strange Norwegian names and places didn't help either.
I decided on two occasions to abandon this book part way through and I even read another book in the meantime before picking it up again and reading to the end.
I'm glad I persisted - all the pieces of the puzzle made perfect sense at the end but I think the author needs to provide more plot cohesion to keep the reader interested during the first three quarters of this long book..