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It’s a cold winter in Oslo, Norway, and celebrities are turning up murdered in macabre ways—their bodies placed in puzzling positions. Worse, the killer doesn’t seem to have a motive. None of the celebrities are connected in any way, except for being famous. But just as there is no perfect alibi, there’s also no such thing as a crime without a motive.
Detective Adam Stubo and his wife, Johanne Vik, are at home taking time off to celebrate the birth of their new baby girl. Unfortunately, they get sucked into the case. As they both deal with the stress that a newborn brings, they try to figure out a motive for the killings and a profile for the killer, hoping to stop the murderer before he or she strikes again.
Johanne recalls a chilling pattern from her FBI days. It’s a period in her life she wants to forget, much to Adam’s irritation, because he feels she needs to talk about it. They fight often during the case, and the pattern is met with mild ridicule before it’s eventually dismissed—a mistake that might cause another celebrity’s death.
Though What Never Happens flows with rich, descriptive words, placing you within the characters’ world, the story feels dry and at times boring. I started this novel twice, and then I put it down and reached for something more exciting before I finally got into the story.
At times, I like an ambling but absorbing mystery—one that requires serious concentration to keep up with what’s going on—but I guess that wasn’t the case this time. I had trouble getting a handle on the characters, who seemed scattered and fragmented, as if the reader is only getting a brief glimpse of who they really are. I found that a bit distracting and somewhat annoying.
Also, I didn’t really care for the way that the mystery was revealed near the end. It felt dropped in out of the blue—plausible, just not very satisfying. A definite letdown—maybe because my mind had taken the unveiling in a totally different direction.
However, I did find the motive to be chilling—and it’s definitely the most interesting part of What Never Happens. Just the thought of someone killing for that reason left me with an uneasy feeling.
What Never Happens has an interesting plot but not a whole lot of excitement. If you like your stories to move at a faster pace, I’d skip this one and pick up something by James Patterson instead.
