Finger of Cassandra

A continuation of detective adventures of Fredrik Drum, a gourmand, a subtle connoisseur of wines, and a specialist in ancient scripts and cultures. In the fifth volume, Fredrik Drum will again have to face a mystery that seems impossible to solve. Who benefits from the murder of the curator of the National Gallery? How can the sudden appearance of a four-ton statue be explained in a small country cottage?

While the detective investigates the case, the world around him becomes surreal—befitting the investigation. The city fills with magicians who arrive for a congress and sinks into a phantasmagoria. And the stranger the plot whirlpool grows, the closer the hero gets to uncovering his own secret.

Detective novels about Fredrik Drum by the Norwegian writer Gert Nygårdshaug are, in a way, an alternative to the harsh Scandinavian noir. Here there is no existential gloom and no puddles of blood—only a light adventure-and-detective story which, depending on the mood, is more reminiscent of novels about Nero Wolfe than, say, of a series about Harry Hole.