What Is Mine

Book Review by Reader Maid

Here's another review from my friend Reader Maid who relishes a good mystery with strong characters.

What Is Mine - by Anne Holt

"Now you've got what you deserved," states the note attached to Kim Oksøy's body when it is mysteriously returned to his home. Five-year-old Kim had been taken from his bedroom during the night just six days after eight-year-old Emilie Selbu disappeared while walking home from school. Even more puzzling, Kim's autopsy failed to find a cause of death while Emilie's fate remains unknown.

Detective Chief Inspector Adam Stubo of the Norwegian National Criminal Investigation Service (NCIS) very much wants lawyer/psychologist Johanne Vik to serve as profiler on the case. After all, Vik had taken an FBI profiling course in the U.S. several years ago and came highly recommended by her F.B.I. Instructor. She had also authored a research paper on sexually motivated crimes.

But Vik wants nothing to do with these disappearances. As the single mother of a four-year-old, she doesn't want to think about crimes against children. Yet she is currently working on a project to prove the innocence of Aksel Seier, a man convicted of the brutal murder of an eight-year-old girl more than thirty years ago who was released from prison without explanation after serving just a few years of his sentence. A former attorney who worked on Seier's parole application has been haunted by his case and would like to confirm his innocence before she dies. Vik has agreed to find Seier and investigate his case.

With "What Is Mine," Anne Holt has crafted a riveting mystery told from multiple perspectives in which much of the information about the crimes and characters is scattered among several narrative threads. Holt proves an expert storyteller, dangling details in just the right tantalizing amounts to create a great page-turner whose two central characters have lives that extend beyond the plot to form narratives of their own. Readers should not miss this complex and satisfying mystery.