Death of the Demon: A Hanne Wilhelmsen Novel by Anne Holt

Hanne Wilhelmsen has been promoted and is now a superintendent.  It's new to her and she has to learn how to be a boss instead of a detective.  It's not going well.

Scribner and Edelweiss allowed me to download an ebook of this story for review (thank you).  It will be published on June 18th, so check with your local bookstore for a copy then.

Hanne is a very good detective; it's hard for her to assign the duties she would like to undertake to someone else.  When the director of an orphanage is found knifed to death in her office chair, the clues are minimal.  It almost has to be a member of the staff or perhaps one of the children.  After all, Olav was very difficult to deal with and now he's missing.

This story is set in Norway.  The orphanage takes in troubled children.  They may have parents, but the parents don't have the skills to raise them properly.  The staff at the orphanage do a good job, but they aren't all they seem, either.

The detectives find themselves pursuing a lot of different trails, with none of them answering who the murderer is.  Hanne gets reprimanded for doing too much investigation.  And the ending is eye-opening.  Ms. Holt pulls no punches in her story.  It's one that I will remember again and again because I couldn't believe she'd do that to a character.  It was an appropriate ending, but was it really justice?  You'll have to read it yourself and see what you think.

Happy reading.