I've never read Anne Holt's work before even though she's a best-selling novelist. That's because she's a Norwegian author, and her novels are all written in Norwegian. So English readers like me are lucky when her eighth installment of The Hanne Wilhelmsen series was translated into English.
After having read Snow by Orhan Pamuk, also another translated work, Anne Holt's 1222 is a refreshing change. It draws you in, unlike Snow.
Although it's a crime thriller, it is not one of those action-packed novels that I like. Rather, it is reminiscent of Agatha Christie and Sherlock Holmes. It focuses more on solving the puzzle of the crime instead of the crime itself. That said, I do like Agatha Christie and Sherlock Holmes, too, so if there is going to be anymore English-translated work of Holt's, I'll be sure to read them.
1222 is the name of a hotel atop a mountain near a train station. The story begins with a snow blizzard that caused the train to derail. The survivors were rescued and taken to Finse 1222. Snowed in and unable to go home, people started to die.
Amongst the survivors was a former police detective Hanne Wilhelmsen. Paralysed from waist down due to a bullet that hit her 12th and 13th verterbrae, she tried to work out who the murderer was from a long list of suspects.
Even though I am more a fan of fast action novels, somehow the narration of 1222 managed to draw me into the story and it was one of those hard-to-put-down books. Imagine this....my nose was buried in my Kindle as hubby and I walked along Jalan Telawi in Bangsar.....
