I'm traveling alone

Review by Booklist Review

*Starred Review* The shocking murder of a little girl reunites Oslo police investigator Holger Munch and his brilliant, intuitive colleague Mia Krüger. When the body of the six-year-old is found, dressed in doll clothes and wearing the airline tag, I'm traveling alone, Mia spots the numeral one scratched on the girl's fingernail and predicts there will be more such murders. Mia, reclusive and suicidal since she shot the junkie boyfriend of her late twin sister, rejoins the Violent Crimes Section and sees her prediction hold true, as the body count of six-year-old girls rises and Munch's beloved granddaughter becomes a target. The investigation eventually encompasses a nursing home, where aging residents are urged to leave their estates to a strange nearby church, and brings up a cold case from six years earlier in which an infant disappeared. And finally it turns personal, for both Munch and Mia. Nordic writers seem to reach a colder, darker place in their crime fiction than most other writers do, and Bjørk (the pen name of Norwegian novelist, playwright, and singer/songwriter Frode Sander Øien) exemplifies this in his American debut. A suspenseful, skillfully wrought thriller with the potential for a sequel, this is thoroughly chilling and an excellent read-alike for Jo Nesbø fans.--Leber, Michele Copyright 2015 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Bjork (the pen name of Norwegian novelist Frode Sander Oien) makes his U.S. debut with this brooding serial killer thriller. Oslo detectives Holger Munch, a math nerd who dotes on his six-year-old granddaughter, and Mia Krüger, a brilliant profiler who has burned out on her disheartening job and is on the verge of self-destruction, are on the trail of a murderer, whose first victim, a six-year-old girl, was found hanging from a tree by a jump rope, perfectly bathed and groomed, dressed in doll clothing. Similar killings follow. Munch and Krüger realize that they're dealing with a resourceful perpetrator who plans meticulously and seems always to be a step ahead of them. Krüger eventually discovers that the killer may have a personal vendetta, and when Munch's granddaughter is threatened, she and Munch must gaze into their own pasts for crucial clues. Bjork doles out characterization and exposition in multiparagraph lumps, but harrowing and enthralling action sequences more than compensate. (Feb.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

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Review by Library Journal Review

After a six-year-old girl is found dressed up like a doll and hanging from a tree, police investigator Holger Munch rebuilds his disbanded Oslo Violent Crimes unit. Once he has located and brought brilliant detective Mia Krüger back from her self-imposed exile, Munch rounds out the team with colleagues both old and new, including Gabriel, a bright young computer hacker who has just been recruited to the force. When more girls go missing, the team race against the clock to find the killer before it's too late. Mia's deductive skills rival those of Sherlock Holmes, but even she is having trouble getting to the bottom of this mystery that may involve one of Munch's old unsolved investigations, a nursing home, a famous actor, and a religious cult. It soon becomes apparent that the killer has a special grudge against Munch and Mia. VERDICT A breath of fresh air in the crowded Scandinavian crime genre, this suspenseful novel (the first of the author's works to be published in United States) by Bjork, the pen name of Norwegian novelist, playwright, and singer/songwriter Frode Sander Oien, will hook readers early and keep them on the edge of their seat until the final pages. Fans of Jo Nesbo are sure to enjoy the flawed yet likable characters. [See Prepub Alert, 8/24/15.]-Portia Kapraun, Delphi P.L., IN © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

Children stolen and dressed like dolls before they're murdered bring suicidal detective Mia Kruger out of hiding and back to police work in Bjrk's complicated, yet compelling, tale. Mia, excoriated by the media when she killed her dead sister's drug dealer, is biding her time, counting the days until she can kill herself. But her old police boss, Holger Munch, has different ideas. He needs Miaa genius at reading crime scenesto help him solve the kidnapping and murder of a 6-year-old girl. The girl, wearing a backpack and a sign around her neck that says, "I am traveling alone," was found hanging in a tree. Now, Munch fears, the murders of other children will follow. Lured back into service just 12 days from the date she had been planning to die, Mia starts finding things in the crime scene photos that others failed to see. Meanwhile, Munch is balancing his relationships with his daughter, granddaughter, and elderly mother. As Munch and Mia cobble together their old team and add a few new faces to the unit, two young brothers find another dead girl in the woods. Like the first victim, she is only 6 and wearing a backpack and the same sign. Before long, the killer strikes yet again, and soon it will become very personal for the two police detectives. Bjrk has constructed a labyrinthine plot with plenty of red herrings and rabbit holes, but even with a cast of many, he manages to do justice to the story. Munch and Mia, who are very good at their jobs, are also interesting and vulnerableespecially Mia, who is clearly disturbed and shows it. Other than stuffing the book with an overabundance of characters who play little to no role in the case, Bjrk provides good solid reading. Bjrk constructs a plot like a jigsaw puzzle with many pieces, and somehow it all works. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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***This excerpt is from an advance uncorrected proof*** Copyright © 2016 Samuel Bjork Mia Krüger sat on the rock watching the sun set over Hitra for the last time. April 17. One day to go. Tomorrow she would rejoin Sigrid. She felt tired. Not tired in the sense that she needed sleep but tired of everything. Of life. Of humanity. Of everything that had happened. She had found a k ind of peace before Holger showed her the photographs in the folder, but once he left, it had crept over her again. This vile feeling. Evil. She took a swig from the bottle she'd brought with her and pulled the knitted cap further over her ears. It had grown colder now; spring had not come early after all. It had only tricked everyone into thinking it was com- ing. Mia was pleased that she had the bottle to warm her up. This wasn't how she'd imagined her last day. She had actually planned to cram as much as she could into her final twenty-four hours of life. The birds, the trees, the sea, the light. Have a d ay off from self-medicating so that she could feel things, be aware of herself, one last time. It had not worked out that way. After Holger left her, her desire for sensory deprivation had only increased. She had drunk more. Taken more pills. Woken up without real- izing that she'd been asleep. Fallen asleep without realizing she'd been awake. She had promised herself not to care too much about the contents of the file. Stupid, obviously. When had she ever been able to distance her- self from anything in these cases? Her job. Well, it might be a job for other people, but not for Mia Krüger. Each case affected her far too deeply. They all reached right inside her soul, as if it were her own story, as if  she  were the victim. Kidnapped, raped, beaten with iron bars, burned with ciga- rettes, killed with a drug overdose, only six years old, hanged from a tree with a jump rope. Why wasn't Pauline Olsen's name on the schoolbooks? When everything else had been planned down to the last detail. Fuck it. She'd tried blanking out the image of the little girl hanging from the tree, but she could not get it out of her head. Everything seemed so staged. So theatrical. Almost like a game. A k ind of message. But for whom? For whoever found the child? The police? Mia had trawled through her memo- ries to discover if the name Toni had cropped up in any case she'd been in- volved with but had found nothing. This was exactly the kind of thing she used to be so brilliant at, but she no longer seemed to be able to function. And yet there was something here, something she could not quite put her finger on, and it irritated her. Mia watched the sun sink into the sea and tried to concentrate. A message? For the police? An old case? A cold case? There were only a few unsolved cases in her career history, thank God. Even so, one or two still troubled her. A rich elderly lady had been found dead in her apartment, but they had been unable to prove that it was murder even though Mia personally was fairly sure that one of the daughters was re- sponsible for the old lady's death. She could not remember the name Toni in connection with that investigation. They had helped Ringerike Police in a missing-persons inquiry some years back. A b aby had disappeared from the maternity ward, and a Swedish man had claimed responsibility and killed himself, but the baby had never been found. The case was shelved, even though Mia had fought to keep it active. No Toni in that investigation either, not as far as she could remember. Pauline. Six years. Hang on, wasn't it six years since that baby had disappeared? Mia drained the bottle and let her eyes rest on the horizon while she tried to guide her gaze inward. Back- ward. Six years back. There was something here. She could almost taste it. But it refused to rise to the surface. Damn. Mia rummaged around her pants pockets for more pills but found none. She had forgotten to bring more. Her medication was laid out on the dining table now. Everything she had left. Plenty of it. Ready for use. She had imag- ined waiting until dawn, until the light came. Better to travel in the light, had been her thinking.  If I t ravel in darkness, perhaps I'll end up in dark- ness,  but right now she did not care. All she had to do was wait until the clock passed midnight. When April 17 became 18. Come to me, Mia, come. It was not the ending she had imagined. She got up and hurled the empty bottle angrily into the sea. She regretted it immediately--she shouldn't litter; this rule had stayed with her since her childhood. The lovely garden. Her parents. Her grandmother. Instead she should have written a message and put it in the bottle. Done something beautiful in her last few hours on earth. Helped someone in need. Solved a case. She wanted to go back to the house, but she could not get her legs to move. She stayed where she was, hugging herself, freezing, on the rocks. Toni J. W. Smith. Toni J. W. Smith. Toni J. W. Smith. Toni J. W. Smith. Pau- line. No, not Pauline. Toni J. W. Smith. Oh, hell. Mia Krüger suddenly woke up. As did her head, her legs, her arms, her blood, her breathing, her senses. Toni J. W. Smith. Of course. Of course. Of course. Oh, dear Lord, why had she not seen this earlier? It was so obvious. As clear as day. Mia ran toward the house, tripped in the darkness but got back on her feet, stormed into the living room without closing the door behind her. She continued into the kitchen. She knelt down by the cupboard below the utility sink and started going through the trash can. This was where she had tossed it, wasn't it? The cell phone he had left or her. In case you change your mind. She found the phone in the garbage and rummaged around for the scrap of paper that had accompanied it. A yellow Post-it note with a PIN code and Holger's number. She went back to the living room, could hardly wait now, turned on the phone. Entered the code on the small screen with trembling fingers. Of course. Of course. No wonder it didn't add up. Everything had to add up. And it did. Toni J. W. Smith. Of course. She was an idiot. Mia rang Holger's number and waited impatiently for him to pick up. The call went to voice mail, but she tried the number again. And again. And again, until she finally heard Holger's sleepy voice on the other end. "Mia?" Holger yawned. "I got it," Mia said breathlessly. "What have you got? What time is it?" "Who cares what time it is? I've got it." "What?" "Toni J. W. Smith." "Seriously? What is it?" "I think that J.W. is short for Joachim Wicklund. The Swedish suspect from the Hønefoss case. Do you remember him?" "Of course I do," Munch mumbled. "As for Toni Smith," Roma continued, "I think it's an anagram:  It's not him.  Joachim Wicklund didn't do it. It's the same perpetrator, Holger. As in the Hønefoss case." Munch was silent for a long time. Mia could practically hear the cogs turn in his brain. It was almost too far out to be true, but even so. It had to be an anagram. "Don't you think?" Mia said. "But that's insane," Munch said at length. "Worst thing is, I think you might be right. So are you coming?" "Yes," Mia replied. "But this case only. Then I quit. I have other things to do." "Of course. It's up to you," Munch said. "Are we back in Mariboesgate?" "Yes." "I'll catch the plane tomorrow." "Great. See you there." "You will." "Drive carefully, will you?" "I'm always careful, Holger." "You're never careful, Mia." "Screw you, Holger." "I love you, too, Mia. Good to have you back. See you tomorrow." Mia ended the call and stood for a moment smiling cautiously to her- self. Now feeling calm, she walked into the living room and looked at all the pills she had lined up on the dining table. Come to me, Mia, come. In her mind she apologized to her twin sister. Sigrid would have to wait a little longer. Mia Krüger had a job to do first. Excerpted from I'm Traveling Alone by Samuel Bjørk All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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