Many crime writers could learn a lot from Anne Holt

Anybody reading the quotes on the cover would have all the wrong ideas about this book, On the back there is this "'Step aside, Stieg Larsson, Holt is the queen of Scandinavian crime thrillers - Red Magazine" - anybody reading this would think the author of the Millennium Trilogy was a woman and this book is somewhat similar. Well Red Magazine, you're wrong on both counts. In Dust and Ashes is a carefully grafted crime novel, involving Anne Holt's wonderfully odd detective, Hanne Wilhelmsen, and her recently introduced sidekick Henrik Holme, who is equally OCD. The story involves two separate deaths, one which seems is a crime and the other isn't, there is also the rise in anti-immigration rhetoric and the hate brought with it. Add on EuroLotto winners, dodgy herbal remedies and you have a very up-to-date novel which is written extremely well from one of the great European crime writers, it will keep you involved in the many different strands which gradually wind together at the end. Even though the actual perpetrators can be easily worked out, this is no way this ruins the eagerness of the story. It's meant to be the last of the books with Holt's star detective, which is sad, but you can continue to enjoy her writing in her other books.