The Boy in the Snow, by Samuel Bjørk

The current Norwegian crime novel is written between scores of two rock musicians who as soon as they shout in front of a microphone or contort themselves with their guitar as if they feel away from any noise and are prepared to exploit that other creative vein between stories of the genre that more camps in those northern parts.

I definitely mean Jo nesbo and to Frode Sander Øien (Samuel Bjork's real name), two guys who star in a musical and literary dispute and who, if there were poetic justice, should end each other in a duel in the Norwegian midnight sun.

But in the meantime, regardless of possible matches and competitions, it is best to enjoy the stories of both. Because in the struggle, the stimulus and the desire for improvement are born. And this novel by Frode Sander "The boy in the snow" has a lot of gained trade, escalation in its narrative tension with respect to his previous novels and innovation in the plot approach. Because in the black genre, the protagonists usually face the most effective criminal who seeks to satisfy their desire for revenge in the face of old traumas, blood debts, various psychopathies focused on groups of potential victims ...

And yet not so many times do we run into the murderer just because, with the murderer without a plan who only moves to channel his instinct of animosity. Who is capable of killing and finds his particular summary justice in the extraneous violence and knows that the best way to quench his hatred is to act randomly ...

Of course, from the perspective of detectives Holger Munch and Mia Krüger the matter takes on psychotic overtones. They don't know how to try to hunt down this new form of evil that acts completely improvised. Anyone can die if they cross the killer's path at the worst time.

But also, good old Bjor throws a bait from the beginning of the story that catches the reader and makes him shake restlessly clinging to that bait. We started traveling back in time, until 1999. What happened on a cold night of that year is linked to present events. And we, readers, would like to launch a wake-up call to the bewildered inhabitants of the plot. Unless everything is a trick, a clever misdirection maneuver to make us believe that we know more than what the researchers are linking ...

What is clear is that for the serial killer of the most improvised victims, he has a lot of room for maneuver to launch his ordeal at his two pursuers. He seems to know them very well and invites them to play in the most macabre of games, in which the death dice can end up marking the most unexpected move ...

You can now buy the novel The Boy in the Snow, the new book by Samuel Bjork, here: