Smoke Screen by Thomas Enger & Jorn Lier Horst (translated by Megan Turney)
I would like to thank Anne from Random Things Books and Orenda Books for an advance copy of this novel in exchange for a fair and honest review
Publisher – Orenda Books
Published – Out Now
Price – £8.99 paperback £3.99 Kindle eBook
Oslo, New Year’s Eve. The annual firework celebration is rocked by an explosion, and the city is put on terrorist alert.
Police officer Alexander Blix and blogger Emma Ramm are on the scene, and when a severely injured survivor is pulled from the icy harbour, she is identified as the mother of two-year-old Patricia Smeplass, who was kidnapped on her way home from kindergarten ten years earlier … and never found.
Blix and Ramm join forces to investigate the unsolved case, as public interest heightens, the terror threat is raised, and it becomes clear that Patricia’s disappearance is not all that it seems…
A thriller can often be like a magician’s trick misdirection. What we think is the crime is not always what the solution will reveal. Like people thrillers are complicated. In Smoke Screen by Jorn Lier Horst and Thomas Enger (translated by Megan Turney) we arrive on New Year’s Eve in Norway. Crowds gather in Oslo for the big night which ends in tragedy that two dedicated individuals end up also resolving a much older mystery.
Emma Ramm a reporter is trying to shake off a traumatic year she leaves her boyfriend for a few hours to be alone in the crowd of New Year’s Day. As midnight approaches an explosion on the coast rocks the city. Several people are instantly killed and on the scene investigator Alexander Blix dives to save a badly injured woman floating face down in the water. What looks like a domestic terrorism case has personal consequences for Ramm and Blix is assigned to tackle things. At which point he finds he has rescued the mother of a missing child that was one of the most controversial missing child cases for years. Was this pure coincidence?
This is a very well-constructed thriller. Horst and Enger have built up a nest of mysteries wrapped within each other. This is the second novel to feature Blix and Ramm (but for new readers a quick summary is provided, and the books are not directly related). Very quickly the novel takes left turns for both characters Ramm is personally touched by the explosion and Blix was involved in the case of Patricia Semplass a terrible missing child case that also led to her father being imprisoned for murder. Blix’s bosses want the terrorist and Ramm’s boss wants a story so the two initially work separately but keep crossing paths and trading information interestingly they both come across as loners and it is more a father/daughter relationship than will they won’t they. Character wise they’re both fairly contained individuals. Blix trusts his instincts rather than always following orders and Ramm is able to make sense of information. There are some good twists and a rather dangerous character that is truly unsettling in their sense of purpose. The tone is very even handed – a measured investigation getting tenser rather than constant action and explosions.
A solid thriller that poses an interesting mystery to the reader and quite interesting to see how Norwegian life and media is depicted. Curl up in your seat and let bit take you on a dangerous trip!
