Blessed are Those who Thirst

The author, Anne Holt, is described on the cover as being "the Godmother of modern Norwegian crime fiction".  In an effort to diversify the range of crime writers that I read, I picked the book up in the library.

I guess any crime writing necessarily has to be about the characters involved as well as the crime, but in this book, the studies of the characters take precedence over the crime investigation, even though the murders are bizarre in the extreme.  The detective is in a long-term lesbian relationship but still struggles with "coming out", the murder victims are refugees, there's a sordid rape to complicate matters which sets the victim's father on the investigative trail thus complicating his relationship with his daughter and so it goes on. 

In short, I didn't warm to this book and I struggled to get through it.