Fear Not

I recently finished Anne Holt’s 2009 novel, Fear Not, translated by the always excellent Marlaine Delargy. What a fun ride, blending a puzzling plot with serious social issues. When the bishop of Bergen is stabbed to death late at night at Christmastime, her husband and son seem able or unwilling to explain why she was alone at night outdoors. Adam Stubo tries to sort out the high-profile case, unaware of the related cases unfolding around him. Because the deaths are explained as suicides or drug overdoses or inexplicable but unremarkable acts of violence visited on people on the margins, nobody connects the dots until Stubo’s wife, Johanne Vik, meets with an American friend who fills her in on a new kind of hate crime.

This is a show more deeply involving novel with a big cast of characters whose stories are skillfully interwoven. As in the preceding book in the series, Death in Oslo, things hinge on a coincidence of sorts, but it’s not at all hard to go with the story, which is absorbing. One interesting technique Holt uses is connecting each new scene with the previous one with a phrase, an image, or a thought. I began to enjoy looking for these little narrative hook-and-eye features. Another feature that seems a common thread in her books is the uncovering of a conspiracy, which in this case is fairly fanciful but an interesting way to think through the implications of religious fervor and bigotry. The final pages include a touching, if unusual, alternative depiction of religious faith. I thoroughly enjoyed this complex and well-plotted mystery. show less

The fourth, and most successful, of the Vik/Stubo novels opens as a young girl wanders around Oslo city at night, drifting onto the tram tracks while lost in her imaginary world. As the trolley bears down on her, a man sweeps her up, saving her life. At the same time, the distraught mother comes rushing out of a nearby hotel, grabs her daughter and slaps the rescuer's face.

The woman is Johanne Vik, who has been attending her sister's wedding. Her daughter tells her that "the lady" is dead. Johanne thinks Kristina is confused and means the babysitter she employed to watch the girl during the late wedding party, but of course, the child is not that misguided, as later becomes apparent.

The story shifts to the tales of various characters - show more a woman priest is shockingly murdered, stabbed while out on a walk one night. Adam Stubo of the national crime investigation squad and Johanne's partner, is bought in to help the investigation, gently probing the priest's catatonic husband and grown-up son to find an explanation for this apparently deranged and illogical crime. The decomposed body of a young man or boy is found in the river, which forms a separate plot thread. In this mix is a self-made industrialist, whose story we slowly learn and who we gradually realise is intimately involved in these and other apparently unrelated crimes that are leaving the police confused.

It is Johanne, still officially on maternity leave, who instinctively begins to connect the dots. In the middle of the book, in a somewhat artificial but fascinating side-section, she meets with an old American friend from her days with the FBI. Together the two women talk about hate crime, and Johanne (who is writing a thesis on the topic) begins to piece together the motivation for the current crime wave and the threat she perceives to her daughter.

This is an excellent book - in a couple of the previous novels in this series, the author has left things hanging in the air a bit at the end. This is not the case here. FEAR NOT is a fully rounded novel that addresses the terrorist and fanatical elements that plague our contemporary society, but elects to do so in an intelligent and engaging manner rather than by indulging in melodramatics. Having said this, the book is certainly not a dull lecture; to the contrary it provides plenty of conundrums that do eventually turn out to have plausible solutions. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel, not least for its contemporary relevance in terms of its treatment of hate-inspired crimes, and very much look forward to the author's next. show less

I discovered Anne Holt through the research I was doing for an article on Women writing Nordic crime novels. I thought her resume was interesting and her books would prove to be the kind of intelligent crime novel I like. I'm pleased to say that my hopes were mostly fulfilled. But one has to first get beyond the marketing screams that the cover is plastered with (Move over, Steig Larsson! 5 million sold! the Queen of Nordic Crime!...etc).

Fear Not is the 6th (?) book in Anne Holt's Adam Stubo/Johanne Vik series and the mostly recently translated into English. I usually like to start at the beginning of a series of crime novels, but this was the most readily available. It features the married duo of brilliant NCIS detective Adam Stubo show more (often called in to assist local departments) and criminologist Johanne Vik (an equally brilliant, but somewhat insecure professional who is apparently called "the reluctant detective" behind her back). It is Christmas eve and the bishop of Bergen, Eva Karin Lysgaard, has been found late at night, stabbed to death. Well known and universally well-loved, the crime is shocking and due to the high profile of the victim, Stubo is called in.

Without telling too much of the story, there is a fairly high body count in this book. At the halfway point people are still dying in different places, by different means. Adam is focusing on the bishop's death, the Oslo police on several other deaths, some only moderately suspicious, and Johanne is working on research into hate crimes. It will all come together.

Fear Not is an intelligent, character-driven, complex and satisfying crime novel. Vik, Stubo, their family (particular their young daughters), the Oslo detective Silje Sorensen, and other characters are rendered credibly and we, as readers, feel we are not only involved in the work they do or the crimes they are involved in, but in other parts of their lives as well. To Holt's credit, this 'domesticity' does not overtake the hard work, both intellectual and otherwise, of crime-solving, and there is also much thoughtful information given, in this case, to hate groups and hate crimes, much of it from the US, though Vik's research.

I look forward to chasing down more of Anne Holt's novels. show less

Es gibt eine ganze Reihe von Morden in Bergen und Oslo - oder besser Toten. Eine ermordete Bischöfin, ein toter Asylbewerber der aus dem Wasser gefischt wird, eine heroinsüchtige junge Frau stürzt aus dem Fenster, ihr Bruder wird in einem Park niedergeschlagen und noch ein, zwei mehr. Wer den Klappentext zuvor nicht gelesen hat, wird keinerlei Verbindungen erkennen, erste Anhaltspunkte tauchen ab der Mitte des Buches auf. Dort wird eine ominöse "Gruppe 25" eher beiläufig eingeführt, religiöse Fanatiker deren Ziel die Tötung einer bestimmten 'Art' Menschen ist. Doch erst nach 3/4 der Lektüre werden die Zusammenhänge klarer erkennbar, die zwischen all den Toten und dieser Gruppe bestehen. Bis dahin laufen die Ermittlungen show more unabhängig voneinander, wobei Kommissar Yngvar Stubø aufgrund der Brisanz des Falles in Bergen ermittelt, um dort den Mord an der Bischöfin aufzuklären. Insgesamt gibt es sicherlich sieben bis acht unterschiedliche Handlungsstränge, die mehr oder weniger zusammenhanglos nebeneinanderher laufen, bis dann im letzten Viertel des Buches sich alles ineinander fügt wie die Teile eines großen Puzzles (wobei das ein oder andere Teil übrigbleibt).

Gotteszahl war mein erstes Buch von Anne Holt und vermutlich auch nicht mein letztes. Denn eines steht fest: Frau Holt kann schreiben. Und zwar in dem Sinne, dass man es lesen möchte. Doch nach dem Lesen der letzten Seite bin ich mir immer noch unschlüssig: War das nun wirklich brilliant oder eher langatmig und zäh? Denn die typischen Eigenarten eines Krimis sind in diesem Buch nicht zu finden: Man fiebert vor Aufregung, wen erwischt es als Nächstes? Ist der/die ErmittlerIn auf der richtigen Spur? Liege ich mit meinem Verdacht richtig?

Vielleicht sollte man ein neues Genre einführen: Roman mit krimihaftem Charakter - dafür gibt es auch 4 Sterne :-) show less

There is a perfectly good English translation of this book out there, but I read this version because I desperately need to practise my German. Hard to explain – but I really love reading books in a foreign language. You get the whole thing in slow-motion and it’s somehow intensified. It works particularly well with a book like this which creates many mysteries and leaves solving them to the very end. For the last week, while I read the final chapters, me, this book and my dictionary have been inseparable.

Sometimes it was a difficult experience – there are some notable information dumps, lengthy discourses on the subject of hate groups or police procedure punctuated only by repetitive references to characters taking a deep breath. show more But otherwise it was a very enjoyable read. It created a fascinating word in which women are mostly clever and resourceful, and men are buffoons who may well get lost on the way to the loo. There are so many characters – everyone can like at least one of them.

It was interesting that emails and letters written by an American character are represented in English with no translation offered. All readers are assumed to understand it. Quite humbling really: would an English book expect to get away with great chunks of untranslated German or Norwegian? I don’t think so.

It has taken me six months to read this and it has become part of my life...I feel quite bereft without it. I really must read more of this series – preferably in German. show less

Nicely complex plot with a very slow reveal. Masterfully done and neatly tied together at the end. I'll read some more of Anne Holt for sure. Only one thing annoyed me. A habit of segueing between scenes with connectors like this: "As soon as she put the car back in gear once more, she felt less worried. 'You mustn't worry,' the Secretary said sweetly." I found this cute and clever the first time she did it on page 22, but it became a constant right up to page 477 by which time I was well beyond finding it tiresome and twee. Won't stop me reading her, though.

Kommisar Ingvar Stubø und seine Frau Inger Johanne sind in diesem Buch einem Serientäter auf den Fersen, der es aus wohl religiösen Gründen scheinbar auf Homosexuelle und ihre "Verteidiger" abgesehen hat.
Auf dem Buchrücken steht "Noch spannender wäre tödlich". Das kann ich wirklich nicht finden. Das Buch ist eigentlich nicht spannend, weil man ja weiß, was Sache ist und man selbst niemanden verdächtigt, miträt oder mitfiebert. Trotzdem ist das Buch gut zu lesen. Inger Johanne kommt wesentlich besser raus und nervt weniger als in anderen Büchern. Das Thema des durch Fantismus inspirierten Hassmordes ist hochinteressant und zudem aktuell, denn gerade heute jährt sich der furchtbare Anschlag auf die Ferieninsel in Norwegen zum show more ersten Mal.
So macht eigentlich das Thema und die Art, wie einem auch Nebenfiguren menschlich nahe gebracht werden, das eigentlich Interessante an diesem Buch aus. Dass dann manche der Opfer bzw. ihrer Angehörigen doch tiefer drinhängen als gedacht, bringt dann noch interessante Wendungen in den Fall. show less