What Never Happens

by: Anne Holt

Published by: Grand Central Publishing (February release)

Reviewed by C. L Rossman

Deep in a Norwegian winter, an equally cold killer is murdering celebrities—with a fanciful twist: they are killed in ways that relate to their professions. For example, a radio talk show host has her tongue cut out and wrapped in a piece of origami; and a literary critic is stabbed in the eye with a pen.

Right away, the book’s prologue gives you the killer’s gender, as she muses over her life’s work. But you will not know her identity until much later in the book.

Adam Stubo and Johanne Vik, featured crime fighters in Holt’s other mysteries, are busy with their new baby, Ragnhild, and are reluctant to get involved in this new series of murders. But they are pulled in anyway, and Johanne in particular might struggle with bad memories as a past FBI profiler. She is a nervous wreck, continually fearing for her new baby’s safety, perhaps because of an older daughter’s strange mental defects. It’s a source of constant tension between her and her husband.

Finally they identify the “celebrity killer,” but they don’t have enough evidence to hold her; and the book ends with one of the most chilling confrontations I have ever read.

This is only the second American translation from Holt’s best-selling European crime series. She has sold more than three million copies of her other novels worldwide, is a former Norwegian Minister of Justice, former TV news anchor and journalist, and has her own law practice. She divides her time between living in Norway and France.

Armchair Interviews says: If you’re hankering after a new series in mystery fiction, you might take at look at this.