In Dust And Ashes by Anne Holt

I have said many times that I really do not like the Scandi Noir genre of fiction.  In general I love a good crime novel and I have narrowed down why Scandi Noir just doesn't float my boat - there is a propensity for a scattergun approach to introducing characters and scenarios and then three quarters of the way through the author suddenly realises they have to tie everything together and it becomes garbled and frenzied whilst strange deductive leaps are made to get us to the finale.

I am thrilled to report that Anne Holt does not resort to this tactic and I loved this book.  Despite having never read any of the Hanne Wilhelmson story arc previously the character is fully-formed on the page and I quickly became engrossed in this tale.  There are 3 main storylines:

Jonas Abrahmsen lost his young daughter Dina to a road accident.  The anguish of which led to the dissolution of his marriage and him ultimately being jailed for the murder of his wife at New Year.  Now he has been released and the arresting officer bumps into him at a service station shortly before his retirement.  This is the one case that haunts him as he is not sure the right person was convicted.

Iselin Havorn has been exposed as the extremist behind the Tyrfing blogs.  An activist for what can only be described as ethnic cleansing she has been in exile for 3 weeks in her flat before committing suicide.

Christel Bengtson has acheived fame as a blogger and is now making a splash as an actress.  She had a daughter whilst still in high school but her father has provided her with love and support and they share a home.  Happy in their family unit live is good until Bengt Bengtson wins the Eurolottery and Hedda is kidnapped.

Whilst some aspects of the story were obvious from fairly early on there are enough twists and turns to make you keep reading despite thinking you have it all figured out.  The three strands are woven together through Hanne and Henrik Holme, her police officer support from a previous case, who are investigating cold cases.  Did Jonas kill his wife?  Was Iselin Havorn a suicide?  Are things much deeper and darker than we suspect - well, this is Scandi Noir so the answer has to be yes.

A genuine page turner and a book which I read with a surprising amount of enjoyment.  Thank you Ms Holt for breaking my loathing of your genre!

I RECEIVED A FREE COPY OF THIS BOOK FROM READERS FIRST IN EXCHANGE FOR AN HONEST REVIEW.

**Review originally published October 26th, 2017**