The writing partnership between Thomas Enger and Jørn Lier Horst is the stuff that Nordic Noir readers’ dreams are made of. Enger and Horst, both acclaimed crime writers in their own right, are now dominating Norwegian bestseller charts with their gripping thriller series featuring police officer Alexander Blix and journalist Emma Ramm. This pacey, page-turning Nordic crime series blew me away with its first installment, DEATH DESERVED, which found a serial killer at work in Oslo, Norway, committing a series of very public murders. This month, Blix and Ramm are back with the second installment in this inspired crime series. SMOKE SCREEN finds our two protagonists on the heels of a very different kind of villain: a bomber who disrupts the annual New Year’s Eve fireworks display with his own deadly spectacle. Blix and Ramm find themselves independently drawn into the investigation, and it isn’t long before they each discover the shadowy connection between this bombing and a decade-old missing persons case. How do these events fit together? And what is the motivation behind this bomber’s horrific acts? SMOKE SCREEN delivers another intricate, page-turning thriller from two of Norway’s most acclaimed crime writing talents. Long may the partnership between Thomas Enger and Jørn Lier Horst continue—the Blix and Ramm series is a fresh, engaging addition to any Scandinavian crime fiction reader’s library, and a series I hope to be reading for years to come.
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CBTB’s Recommended Locked Room Mysteries
It’s one of crime fiction’s oldest tropes, and one of its most perennially-appealing, too: a group of individuals find themselves locked in a hotel (or on an island, or in a house… you get the idea!), a murderer in their midst. Who among them is the killer? The locked room mystery is an unfailingly entertaining crime fiction subgenre. Clever plots, impossible solutions, red herrings a plenty—there is so much to love about books that fall into this category, and they’ve been a longtime favorite for me ever since I began reading Agatha Christie novels back in the day! With the recent popularity of locked room-style mysteries including THE GUEST LIST by Lucy Foley and THE SANATORIUM by Sarah Pearse, I’ve been receiving more requests than ever for a blog post dedicated to my personal favorite locked room mystery recommendations. Well, the day is finally here! I’m thrilled to share my list of Recommended Locked Room Mysteries with CBTB readers today. From Nordic mysteries to modern-day twists on the genre to classics and more, I hope that every reader will find a little something to catch their eye in today’s blog post.
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Book Review: THE SANATORIUM by Sarah Pearse
As I write this review, I’m in a bit of a reading slump, and I blame it entirely on how much I loved Sarah Pearse’s atmospheric, sinister mystery THE SANATORIUM. This debut novel blends elements of Gothic suspense with a locked room mystery set in the Swiss Alps, and the result is an irresistible, just-one-more-page thriller perfect for your next wintry read. Selected as Reese Witherspoon’s February book club pick, Pearse’s debut novel delivers all the atmosphere, chilling intrigue, and hair-raising suspense that I hoped for and more. Following a woman who has recently taken a leave of absence from her work as a detective, THE SANATORIUM pits an unwitting group of individuals against a shadowy killer who appears to be at work in a high-end, minimalist hotel nestled in the Swiss Alps. When a snowstorm cuts off access to and from the hotel, it’s up to protagonist Elin to investigate a series of disturbing occurrences within the hotel, and get to the bottom of the case before anyone else gets hurt. What begins as a slow-burning suspense story gradually builds to a thriller that will have you up all night turning its pages. Sarah Pearse’s atmospheric, detail-oriented writing brings this sinister story to life, immersing readers in the beautiful-yet-unsettling world of sanatorium-turned-hotel Le Sommet—and all the deadly secrets hidden within its walls. Enter the world of THE SANATORIUM: you won’t want to leave, which is lucky, because you just might not be able to. THE SANATORIUM is a superb debut mystery novel, and I’m already looking forward to seeing what this author writes next.
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Book Review: THE BURNING GIRLS by C.J. Tudor
C.J. Tudor never writes the same book twice, but you can always count on her books to be consistently great. Tudor, author of fan-favorite thrillers including The Chalk Man and The Other People, returns this week with her latest offering: THE BURNING GIRLS, a sinister story that blends folk horror with small-town mystery to chilling end. Tudor’s genre-bending novels are some of my favorites, and THE BURNING GIRLS more than met my high expectations. In this spine-tingling story, Tudor invites readers to Chapel Croft, a small village with a dark history that seems to be informing the sinister events of its present. Things haven’t been right in Chapel Croft in quite some time, and for newcomer Jack and daughter Flo, a fresh start in the quiet village is going to be much more complicated—and potentially dangerous—than either could have imagined. Jack is the town’s new vicar, come to step in after the untimely death of their predecessor. As Jack and Flo navigate this new community, they find themselves confronted not only by the town’s brutal and violent history, but also by the ghosts of the past that seem to linger in Chapel Croft to this day. THE BURNING GIRLS is a story of folk horror perfect for fans of The Wicker Man; it’s also a compelling mystery, inviting readers to unravel the truth about a missing persons case that has long gone cold, but has never stopped haunting this small community. Written with C.J. Tudor’s trademark razor-sharp plotting and sinister, atmospheric suspense, THE BURNING GIRLS is perhaps the author’s most ambitious—and most haunting—story yet.
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Book Review: SHIVER by Allie Reynolds
Last weekend, I had the pleasure of spending my Sunday doing just about nothing aside from reading. My book of choice? SHIVER by Allie Reynolds, a compulsively readable, superbly entertaining locked-room mystery perfect for fans of Ruth Ware and Lucy Foley. SHIVER is pure “popcorn reading” material: lighter on violence but heavy on entertainment value, this engaging, relentlessly suspenseful mystery begs to be devoured in one or two sittings. In SHIVER, readers travel to the French Alps, where a group of friends are arriving for a reunion. Ten years ago, the group met while training for a snowboarding competition. That fateful winter, things took a tragic turn, and one of their own went missing. Fast forward ten years, and each member of the group has tried to move on… but this reunion is poised to bring old tensions, rivalries, and secrets back into the light. As the group settles into the resort where their reunion weekend is set to take place, they discover that things aren’t quite right. The resort is abandoned, with not a soul in sight. Then their phones go missing. And when they discover that the person they each believed invited them on this trip didn’t actually plan this getaway, things take a dark and deadly turn. Who called this group together? And who is behind the increasingly sinister events of the trip? Moving between present-day locked room mystery and flashback chapters that illuminate the dynamics and relationships between our central cast of characters, SHIVER is deliciously readable and delightfully chilling mystery fun. This book thoroughly exceeded my expectations and left me wishing it were even longer, just so I could spend more time with its engaging, endearing characters. SHIVER had me, the least-athletic person I know, ready to throw it all away and move to the mountains to take up snowboarding. If that’s not saying something, I don’t know what is. Readers who love the modern-day locked room mysteries of Ruth Ware and Lucy Foley won’t want to miss Allie Reynolds’ chilling debut.
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