Charlotte Barslund

This novel is set amid Oslo's hierarchy of corruption, from which one very unusual young man is about to propel himself into a mission of brutal revenge. Sonny Lofthus, in his early thirties, has been in prison for the last dozen years: serving time for crimes he didn't commit. In exchange, he gets an uninterrupted supply of heroin, and the unexpected stream of fellow prisoners seeking out his uncanny abilities to soothe and absolve. His addiction...

“An intelligent thriller . . . [a] slim-but-dense marvel of a mystery” from the award-winning author of The Murder of Harriet Krohn (The Washington Post Book World).
Reinhardt and Kristine Ris, a married couple, are out for a Sunday walk when they discover the body of a boy and see the figure of a man limping away. They alert the police, but not before Reinhardt, to Kristine’s horror, kneels down and takes...

Ida Joner gets on her brand-new bike and sets off to buy sweets. A good-natured, happy girl, she is looking forward to her tenth birthday. Thirty-five minutes after Ida should have come home, her mother, Helga, starts to worry. She phones the shop and various friends, but no one has seen her daughter. As the family goes out looking for Ida, Helga's worst nightmare becomes reality, and they contact the police. Hundreds of volunteers comb the neighborhood,...

Academic advisor Dr. Lars Helland is found dead in his office chair at the University of Copenhagen. In his bloody lap is a copy of one of his postgraduate student's thesis on the saurian origin of birds. The autopsy suggests the professor was killed in a very ingenious way so Police Superintendent Soren Marhauge is brought in to investigate. Everyone is a suspect, and as the investigation progresses, the detective is presented with the greatest professional...

When a dispute over her parents' will grows bitter, Bergljot is drawn back into the orbit of the family she fled twenty years before. Her mother and father have decided to leave two island summer houses to her sisters, disinheriting the two eldest siblings from the most meaningful part of the estate. To outsiders, it is a quarrel about property and favoritism. But Bergljot, who has borne a horrible secret since childhood, understands the gesture as...

"'To mother is to murder, or close enough', thinks Johanna, as she looks at the spelling of the two words in Norwegian. She's recently widowed and back in Oslo after a long absence as she prepares for a retrospective of her art.The subject of her work is motherhood and some of her more controversial paintings have brought aboiut a dramatic rift between parent and child. This new proximity, after decades of acrimonius absence, set both women on edge,...

"What happens when passion is mistaken for love? Vigdis Hjorth's novel documents a decade of destruction in a woman's life when she makes just such a mistake."--

Sixteen children and four adults are killed in a devastating boat crash in Copenhagen. Detective Chief Superintendent Konrad Simonsen is called in, only to discover that this was no accident and that one of the passengers has a very personal connection to the homicide team. Reeling from this revelation and not knowing who to trust, Simonsen follows a trail that eventually leads him to Bosnia and a legacy of criminal misconduct. All evidence points...

"Forty-something Louise is married to Peter, with whom she has four children. They live in a big house, and on paper everything looks fantastic. But Louise has a secret that she barely dares to admit to herself: a burning desire for women. When I Came Out is the story of a woman who has met society's expectations throughout her life but finally realizes that she has not been true to herself. From first-time creator Anne Mette Kaerulf Lorentzen, this...