Today I’m pleased to be taking part in the blog tour for Sister. My review is written with thanks to Anne Cater for inviting me on the tour and to Orenda Books for my copy of the book.

Blurb:

Suspended from duty, Detective Frølich is working as a private investigator, when his girlfriend’s colleague asks for his help with a female asylum seeker, who the authorities are about to deport. She claims to have a sister in Norway, and fears that returning to her home country will mean instant death.

Frølich quickly discovers the whereabouts of the young woman’s sister, but things become increasingly complex when she denies having a sibling, and Frølich is threatened off the case by the police. As the body count rises, it becomes clear that the answers lie in an old investigation, and the mysterious sister, who is now on the run…

A dark, chilling and up-to-the-minute Nordic Noir thriller, Sister is also a tense and well-plotted murder mystery with a moving tragedy at its heart, cementing Kjell Ola Dahl as one of the greatest crime writers of our generation.

Review:

According to Goodreads, Sister is the ninth book in the Oslo Detectives series. I haven’t read all the others but Sister works well as a standalone novel, not least because Frank Frolich is such a strong character. His suspension has left him feeling disillusioned with the police, but he takes all his private detective assignments very seriously and is determined to find answers for his clients, often putting himself in danger to do so. This means that I had confidence in him to get to the bottom of what was happening and wanted to keep reading until everything was resolved.

Although Dahl’s writing is very simple, it has a beautiful quality to it which helps to immerse the reader in the Norwegian landscape (Frolich travels a considerable distance over the course of Sister) and some harrowing yet interesting stories. I must congratulate the translator for his ability to convey the beauty of the writing on the page.

Throughout the novel, Dahl addresses many themes that are important in today’s society. I was particularly interested in the aspects of the plot about refugees, as this is an issue I know little about, and I enjoyed learning more.

Sister is a very cleverly plotted novel with many twists and turns, particularly towards the end. I was constantly kept on my toes wondering where the author would take the reader next!

Sister is available from Amazon.

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