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The Fourth Man, by Kjell Ola DahlThe Fourth Man, In the course of a routine police raid, Detective Inspector Frank Frolich of the Oslo Police saves the life of Elizabeth Faremo. She is a dark-haired beauty with mysterious eyes who was inadvertently caught in the crossfire. This is where The Fourth Man starts. Some weeks later, Frolich coincidentally runs into her again. He is attracted to her and they start an affair, even though his colleagues warn him about it. By the time Frolich learns that Elisabeth is the sister of a known local gang-member, Johnny Faremo, it is already too late. And then Johnny is implicated in a crime, a security guard is attacked and killed. But Elisabeth gives her brother and his gang an alibi and Frolich's name is mentioned. Then Elisabeth disappears. Now Frolich is plunged into both an emotional tempest as well as a complex investigation. He is forced to rethink their relationship. Were things as they seemed? Frolich is asked to take some time off. And his boss Gunnarstranda is upset and believes Frank has been played from the very beginning. And as the body count increases, Frolich begins his own unofficial investigation. Complex, dark and tragic, The Fourth Man is a tale of revenge and erotic obsession, where love lures a good cop to walk on the wild side. This is classical crime noir in a modern setting. It has it all: cynical strippers, tough-talking gangsters, corrupt businessmen, mixed identities and a bona fide femme fatale. Dahl's language is, as one critic put it “spiced with small poetic observations … of remarkably high quality.” The author himself says that this is his project, to “combine the genre literature with a little poetry and literary storytelling.” The Fourth Man proves that K.O. Dahl is able to do this. Order books by KO Dahl from amazon UK: The Fourth Man The Man in the Window, by K O DahlThe Man in The Window is the third book (in the original Norwegian sequence) in KO Dahl's series about Frolich and Gunnarstranda. The case is assigned to detective Gunnarstranda and his assistant, Frank Frolich. The clues are few and difficult to interpret. A red string is tied around his neck, and three crosses and a number - 195 - has been written across his chest. Some items from WWII are missing. Also, clearly, several people are quite pleased that Jespersen is dead. The Man In The Window is an intricate and thrilling detective story about love, loyalty, guilt, desire for revenge and shadows from the past. These questions consume the investigation, just as they fill the private lives of the investigators. What they uncover is a country where victims, perpetrators and even police officers are haunted by the past, and are still trying to cope with the dark memories of the Nazi occupation of the country. K O Dahl has a sharp eye for dialogues, he elaborates detailed portraits, he creates surprising relationships and he is excellent at creating tension and atmosphere. The Man in the Window is one of his best, and highly recommended. Praise for The Man in the Window: “I have read many clever and thrilling crime novels through my life, but often they have nothing to do with real life. If I don’t believe in them, they don’t impress me. But when K.O. Dahl tells his stories, I believe every single word.” |
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The main characters in What Never Happens (as well as her earlier What is Mine), are former FBI profiler Johanne Vik and he husband, police inspector Adam Stubo. Even though Johanne is home with their newborn child and cares for a young daughter with autistic-like behaviors as well, she is reluctantly pulled into the investigation as a result of discussions about the terrible and shocking cases at home with her husband.
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(also known as 
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, by Anne Holt
actually the fifth novel inspectors Gunnarstranda and Frolich (Frølich), is in some ways more similar to American crime novels than for instance those by Scandinavian authors like 
and 
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Seventy-nine-year-old Reidar Folke Jespersen, who sells antiques in Oslo, is one day sitting in a restaurant, looking at his wife entering an apartment on the other side of the street, where her lover lives. He leaves the restaurant to meet his brothers. Next morning he is found murdered, sitting naked in a chair in the window of his antique shop.
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