Mystery and Crime · Hardback

The Catalyst Murder

Norwegian title: Katalysatormordet

Hans Olav Lahlum

This is the third volume in the crime fiction series featuring K2 and Patricia: it takes place in Oslo and in the mountainous region of Valdres during August 1970. In Oslo, K2 witnesses a young woman desperately trying to catch a tram, but the doors slam shut in front of her face – the next time he sees her, she is dead. Killed by a shot, she is found between the tram tracks. A new test case for K2’s mental powers.

The affair started two years earlier, when a group of politically active young people set out on a bothy walking tour in Valdres. One of them, the charismatic leader Falko Reinhardt, disappears during the night before 3 August. Now, K2’s murder victim turns out to have been Reinhardt’s girlfriend. It doesn’t take K2 long to realise that to solve the present-day murder he must go back in time, maybe further than just 1968. Once more, only Patricia can help him, but he fails to notice that she has her own problems to fight...

‘Lahlum in top form.’ VG ‘The historian Hans Olav Lahlum’s third crime novel is so thrilling it is impossible to put down.’ Fædrelandsvennen

‘Katalysatormordet is so entertaining and cleverly plotted that I will be happy to read 15 more books in this series.’ Dagbladet ‘All of the books in the series are very well-written and excellent. Katalysatormordet is perhaps the best one of them all.’ Telemarksavisa'Another highly political book, written as a traditional whodunnit, is The Catalyst Killing by Hans Olav Lahlum. This time we’re in Oslo in 1970, where a young woman is murdered at a train station. She turns out to be the fiancee and comrade of the charismatic leader of a breakaway communist group. He disappeared two years earlier, in a puzzle that has never been solved.

Inspector Kristiansen, secretly mentored as ever by a housebound young genius, finds it unimaginable that the two cases aren’t linked.

But why has Marie been killed now?

Lahlum gives us a sympathetic look at the world of political sects and a satisfying mystery set in a time when the authorities all over western Europe lived in daily dread of red revolution.'MORNING STAR