Pierced by Thomas Enger

Crime journalist Henning Juul is damaged goods. A couple years ago, a fire in his flat killed his young son and Juul still struggles each day. And his former wife lives with one of his co-workers at the online newspaper 123News.no Life in Oslo generally sucks.

Tori Pulli is a former enforcer for some organized crime in Norway, but managed to escape his past to become a real estate developer and marry a hot chick who owns a modeling agency. But a friend was killed. In the past, Tori might just square things on his own, but now he attempts to intercede in between warring parties who frequent the Fighting Fit gym. Tori agrees to meet one side of the argument only to find him beaten to death. He calls the cops who promptly arrest Tori because of incriminating evidence. A conviction. Prison.

A phone call. Tori calls Juul and claims innocence. But with a twist. Help Juul prove his innocence and information about the night Juul’s son was killed in the fire will be forthcoming.

Pulli’s appeal is coming up and the media is all over it. But at the start of a TV interview, Pulli convulses and dies right there in front of the news anchor setting up for the interview. The cameraman, a respected pro who has seen the seedy side of the world, just vanishes. A guy from the gym gets shot dead. And that fingerprint on the armrest of the cameraman’s car. A cabin in the woods. The cute girl working in a forgotten hotel out in the boonies.

Juul, Iver (the guy living with Juul’s ex-wife), a couple cops who act as sources for Juul’s work, Pulli’s widow, and lord knows how many more are trying to piece together occurrences that even the police don’t think are related.

This was the first book sent by our new best friend at Simon and Schuster. Now I will admit that I am not one of ‘those’ readers who faithfully carry around the book that ‘everyone is reading.’  Didn’t do it for The Firm, Presumed Innocent, Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Hunger Games, et al. As this is the English translation of a Scandinavian author, I immediately thought, “a Dragon Tattoo” knock off.

Couldn’t have been more wrong. Only thing in common here is the Nordic location.  This is a taut and suspenseful mystery full of scarred characters that probably could only have simmered up out of a region where dark, flawed, self-repentant people are rumored to inhabit. Once I got past the names, and trying to keep straight just who was who, Enger brought me back to Olso (been there twice) and had me rooting for Juul to fit the pieces of the puzzle together (especially those linked to the missing cameraman), despite all the creeps who hang out at the gym, and finally find out just what really happened the night his son died.  Enger’s first novel is called Burned and his third, not yet released in the US, is Scarred; all appear to involve Henning Juul’s search for the truth about . . . that night. Now if I can just find the other two.

ECD