First published in 1917, "Growth of the Soil" is the epic and seminal work by Knut Hamsun, the Nobel Prize-winning Norwegian writer. Originally published in Norwegian and subsequently translated into numerous languages and read around the world, "Growth of the Soil" has been lauded as one of the twentieth-century's most important and ground-breaking novels. Hamsun was a pioneer in a new more realistic style of literature and was one of the first to...

At the foot of the imposing Kollen Mountain lies a small, idyllic village, where neighbors know neighbors and children play happily in the streets. But when the body of a teenage girl is found by the lake at the mountaintop, the town's tranquility is shattered forever. Annie was strong, intelligent, and loved by everyone. What went so terribly wrong? Doggedly, yet subtly, Inspector Sejer uncovers layer upon layer of distrust and lies beneath the...

The narrative of a woman's life in fourteenth-century Norway as she reconstructs her world after the devastation of the Black Death and the loss of almost everything that she has loved.

"L'Inconnue is a young woman lost in turbulent Paris at the turn of the nineteenth century. Amund is a Norwegian toymaker and father to two young children in the 1950s. Anouk is a contemporary Canadian suffering from cystic fibrosis, a medical condition that leaves her constantly fighting for air, swimming through the boundary between life and death as she awaits a lung transplant that could save her life. The way their stories intersect takes us...

When the theft of a purse from a stroller results in an infant's death, two teenagers are in trouble. Unaware of the enormity of their crime, Zipp and Andreas are intent on committing still another. They follow an elderly woman home, and Andreas enters her house with his ever-reliable switchblade. Motionless in the dark, Zipp waits for his friend to come out. Inspector Konrad Sejer and his colleague Jacob Skarre see no connection between the infant's...

When perpetual bachelor Gunder Jomann goes to India for two weeks and comes home married, the town of Elvestad is stunned. On the day the Indian bride is supposed to arrive, the battered body of a woman is found in a meadow on the outskirts of town. None of the "good people of Elvestad" can believe that anyone among them would be capable of such a brutal murder. But in his quiet, formal way, Inspector Konrad Sejer understands that good people can...

"Riktor doesn't like the way the policeman storms into his home without even knocking. He doesn't like the arrogant way he walks around the house, taking note of its contents. The policeman doesn't bother to explain why he's there, and Riktor is too afraid to ask. He knows he's guilty of a terrible crime and he's sure the policeman has found him out. But when the policeman finally does confront him, Riktor freezes. The man is arresting him for something...

A tale moving from the final months of World War II to the present, and from the Russian front to contemporary South Africa, follows the dual adventures of a freedom-seeking war martyr and an alcoholic police officer who is drawn into a mystery with past origins.

"Some years after the disappearance of a young woman, three boys uncover her body during a treasure hunt out in the woods of Norway. THE COLD SONG centers itself on the individual lives of a small family and the murder of this woman, their babysitter, Milla. In life, Milla's relationship with the family is constructed by the many details that come to implicate each character in her murder, implications that haunt them all once her body is found. Milla,...