Durante una operación policial contra unos contrabandistas, un policía,, Frank Frolich, protege con su cuerpo a una mujer que entra en una tienda desoyendo la orden de despejar la calle. Un año más tarde se encuentran en un café y pasan la noche juntos. Cuando Frank descubre que Elisabeth es la hermana de Jonny Faremo, un peligroso delincuente, es demasiado tarde. Se ha obsesionado con ella y la policía empieza a sospechar de él... Frank deberá descubrir si Elisabeth le está utilizando para recuperar su vida y volver a ganarse la confianza de su equipo.

A solid Scandinavian police procedural. ( )

Detective Inspector Frank Frolich "saves" a woman from crossfire and later becomes intimately involved with her, clearly a femme fatale. This is not so great for him when it is discovered she is the sister of a notorious criminal. When she disappears, the lovesick Frank steps over boundaries that have been drawn to get involved with a murder case where he is the most likely suspect.

I thought this crime novel a good one, maybe a very good one in places. I admit that my reading of it was not optimum as I chose to read in 6 or 7 page stints each night at bedtime over the course of about a month, and during an otherwise reading drought (due to current events). My beefs are thus: Lack of characters. Perhaps I like a more team approach, but Frank worked mostly with his friend and colleague Inspector Gunnarstranda. This could be just because of his precarious situation, but I was entirely dissatisfied with the two of them. Secondly, there is a lack of prominent female characters. Law enforcement is historically a heavily male field, yes, but this has been changing over recent decades and there is no sign of that change in this particular book. I didn’t find any women beyond a witness and our femme fatale. I didn’t expect to miss credible female characters but I did. Again, it could just be this particular book (and we shall see: I have several other installments of Dahl’s series in the TBR pile).

Otherwise, I found the crime mystery complex and interesting. The focus was around a larceny gang, which was something a bit different. So, a decent read with some reservations. ( )

I am a fan of Scandinavian thrillers and this one did not disappoint. I read it in a single sitting and will definitely be checking other books by K. O. Dahl. I recommend it to those who enjoy this genre -- I also liked reading about many of the places I was familiar with after vacationing in Norway last year. ( )

From this author, I expected a slow moving plot. I did not expect, nor welcome, a completely inconsequential story, as well. ( )