Sister by Kjell Ola Dahl

Oslo detective Frølich searches for the mysterious sister of a young female asylum seeker, but when people start to die, everything points to an old case and a series of events that someone will do anything to hide.

From the outset, the personality of Frank Frølich, private investigator, is vividly drawn. He likes vintage cars and music to match, so when he meets a charming waitress whose tastes agree with his, he is instantly captivated. This girl of his dreams soon involves him in a nightmare situation, but before Frølich is touched by the tragic experiences of strangers, the author builds up an enchanting picture of the idyllic coastal lifestyle he and Matilde share. This motif is maintained throughout the book. While Frølich travels his native land, checking out leads and hunting down persons of interest, the beauty of Norway, the charm of its people and the deliciousness of its food are engagingly depicted. This detective’s world is less bleak than the usual Scandi Noir landscape, placing it in powerful contrast to the hideous, inhuman cruelty exposed as the plot unfurls.

Suspended from duty, Detective Frølich is working as a private investigator, when his girlfriend’s colleague asks for his help with a female asylum seeker, who the authorities are about to deport. She claims to have a sister in Norway, and fears that returning to her home country will mean instant death.

‘I’ll talk to her and you’re not paying for anything.’ These are Frølich’s words when Matilde asks him to help her friend. At first, he has no intention of getting involved in the mystery, but is soon drawn in by the charming Guri, who dedicates her life to helping asylum seekers. In the waiting room, where a young girl called Aisha cannot meet his eyes, descriptive details express the dismal character of the institution where she is held. ‘Second-hand tables, second-hand chairs and by the windows hung stiff, yellow curtains that could well have been the originals from the time when the house was built many decades before.’ At this point in the novel, it becomes obvious that Frølich is aware of the devastating social issues motivating criminal activity.

‘Frølich quickly discovers the whereabouts of the young woman’s sister, but things become increasingly complex when she denies having a sibling, and Frølich is threatened off the case by the police. As the body count rises, it becomes clear that the answers lie in an old investigation, and the mysterious sister, who is now on the run.

When Matilde tells Frølich after the meeting, ‘I can feel your energy and aura,’ the reader guesses that the detective turned private investigator will be unable to walk away from this case.  However, some aspects of it disturb him. ‘There was something about Guri’s involvement….Why did Guri feel so strongly about Aisha’s fate?’ Information reaches Frølich in ‘nibbles’, driving him to explore the perplexing matter further in a range of locations where he feels more at home.

Becoming discouraged, Frølich describes himself as a ‘master of self-deception’, and as ‘someone who wasted his time on an absolutely pointless assignment.’ He finds solace at Dovrehallen, ‘last outpost of the old-style, dimly lit café bar’. However, seemingly unconnected visitors to his office offer him generous payment to continue his investigations, which indicates that the assignment is far from pointless. The office is located at a significant street corner, where ‘middle-class Oslo finished and multi-ethnic Oslo started’. Frølich understands the complexity of city life, where the rich often exploit the poor, and foul crime is not limited to back streets but often infects the gilded enclaves of the wealthy.

‘A dark, chilling and up-to-the-minute Nordic Noir thriller, Sister is also a tense and well-plotted murder mystery with a moving tragedy at its heart, cementing Kjell Ola Dahl as one of the greatest crime writers of our generation.’

The plot of Sister is sinuous, weaving together the fallout from a thirty-year-old disaster at sea and the devastating experiences of stateless people. Along the way, new characters are regularly introduced, to tell their individual stories and introduce various perspectives on events. Throughout, the author deftly controls the various strands of Frølich’s investigation, transporting the reader irresistibly to a devastating reveal

What did I like about this book?

I enjoyed the way the plot is built into a range of sensitively described urban and rural locations, making Sister both a sensory and a suspenseful experience.

What would I change?

I’m not a fan of procedurals, so at times, the plot was rather too complex for me. However, it’s likely that most readers of crime novels will disagree

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