THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT

by Pernille Rygg ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 28, 1998

A Norwegian first novel very much in the spirit, and manner, of recent literary mysteries by fellow Scandinavians Peter Hfeg and Kerstin Ekman. Psychological researcher Igi Heitmann, who's married to a likable transvestite and is quite credibly stunned by the mysterious death of her father, a luckless private investigator, turns detective herself when she stumbles onto a connection between the latter's fate and the murder of a young woman presumably unknown to either of them. Igi's investigation (reminiscent of the eponymous heroine's adventures in Hfeg's Smilla's Sense of Snow) takes her through Oslo's creepy ""underworld"" and into a legacy of sexual predation and child abuse, in a swiftly paced narrative that's effective both as symbolic statement (its central metaphor tings several interesting changes on the concept of transformation) and breathtaking melodrama.

Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1998

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: 220

Publisher: "Harvill--dist. by Farrar, Straus & Giroux"

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1998

Categories: FICTION