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…
I'd like to thank Anne Cater from Random Things Tours for inviting me to be a part of this blog tour and Orenda Books for my digital copy of Smoke Screen to review.
Smoke Screen is the second book in the Blix and Ramm series from two of Norway's prolific crime fiction writers Jørn Lier Horst and Thomas Enger who joined forces to write this exciting series. I'd previously read books written by Thomas Enger but reading Death Deserved, the first book in this series, was my first time reading anything by Jørn Lier Horst but I have since bought several of his previous books to read at some point in the future.
As I've mentioned previously when I've reviewed books written by a duo, I'm intrigued as to how this process works, how they manage to get the story to flow without any noticeable differences in style and the same applies with Smoke Screen as from the explosive start on New Year's Eve I was drawn into the action alongside Alexander Blix and Emma Ramm with so many questions running through my head that would only be quietened as the story progressed and information unfolds.
It's no spoiler to say that there is history between Blix and Emma as it's mentioned pretty early on in both books regarding how a traumatic event from many years ago brought them into each other's lives. And now years later there is a mutual trust and respect for one another, almost like a father/daughter relationship. Blix is now an established and well respected police officer in Oslo and Emma is a crime reporter for an online newspaper so their paths often cross and none more so on that fateful night that hits close to home for Emma. I love the relationship between Blix and Emma, they might frustrate each other when keeping information they have discovered from one another during the course of their work, but at the same time they are both excellent at what they do, investigating crimes and looking for the truth.
Before too long Blix discovers a link that connects this recent bomb attack to a cold case from 10 years ago, that of a kidnapped child who was never found. Connected once again by this fateful night both Blix and Emma begin searching for clues as to who was behind the attack and why, although working independently and from different angles, but it's only a matter of time before their paths cross again and the clues slot together till we uncover the truth from both the past and present tragedies. But will the truth come too late?
This is another example of the excellent translated fiction I have come to expect from Orenda Books, this time by the translator Megan Turney. The story flowed so naturally that it's hard to believe that it wasn't originally written in English which is testament to both the skills of the authors and the translator.
Smoke Screen is a complex thriller that has the reader on the edge of their seat as we're taken on a highly charged investigation that has plenty of twists and turns along the way to throw us off the scent. I thought I had it all figured out but once again I was only partially correct! Well played to the authors, I can't wait to see what they in store for Blix and Ramm next.
Thanks for the blog tour support x
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