Literature and Fiction / Mystery and Crime · Hardback

Burden of Guilt

Norwegian title: Den som bærer skyld

Hilde S. Palladino

It is a scorching hot summer. The heatwave has lasted for weeks. Former forensic psychologist Bjørk Isdahl is tasked by the police with looking for a middle-aged woman who has disappeared. It turns out that the missing woman had a daughter who disappeared without a trace, eighteen years ago. Bjørk quickly discovers similarities to the double-homicide case in which she made a fatal error three years ago. Where she caused the wrong person to be charged with the brutal murder of two teenage girls. He ended up taking his own life in his cell.

Together with her former partner at the National Criminal Investigation Service, Absalon Lund, Bjørk starts investigating the case. The girl who disappeared eighteen years ago may have been the actual perpetrator’s first victim. Bjørk and Absalon are likely hunting a killer who may have been active for two decades. A perpetrator who has become Bjørk’s nemesis. As the search for the missing woman intensifies, yet another young girl disappears from the neighbourhood. Bjørk is convinced that the serial killer is active again.

Burden of Guilt is an ambitious and well-written psychological crime novel that serves as a follow-up to H.S. Palladino’s explosive debut. The first book in the series, Hidden Under Snow, was sold to Germany, Sweden and Denmark on publication.

«Vibrating and mystified crime where the author keeps the reader in doubt until the last sentence»RANDEBERG 24, six/six stars