The story moves between two parallel themes – the appearance of a new serial killer terrorizing Oslo, and Harry Hole’s ongoing feud with the corrupt and utterly ruthless fellow police officer Tom Waaler, which was already a major part of the plot of the two previous books, “The Redbreast” and “Nemesis“.
Eventually, the two issues converge – enabling Harry to resolve both in the course of a single cataclysmic night. …
Chief Superintendent Adam Dalgliesh of Scotland Yard is called in to investigate the death of two student nurses at the hospital nursing school of Nightingale House. …
Looking through cold cases, Hole realises that he is tracking Norway’s earliest known serial killer.
Most of the victims vanished after the first snowfall of winter, and snowmen were found near each scene.
Further digging leads Hole and his team, including newcomer Katrine Bratt, to suspect that paternity issues with the children of the victims may be a motive for the murders. …
Nilanjana Sudeshna “Jhumpa” Lahiri (born 1967) is a Bengali American author known for her short stories, novels, and essays in English and, more recently, in Italian.
Lahiri was born in London, the daughter of Indian immigrants from the Indian state of West Bengal. Her family moved to the United States when she was three …
The stories are about the lives of Indians and Indian Americans who are caught between their roots and the “New World”.
London Rules is the 2022 book in the Slough House series — where the failed MI5 spies (Slow Horses) are sent when there is no way to fire them.
There are some mentions of Covid.
In London’s MI5 headquarters a scandal is brewing that could disgrace the entire intelligence community. The Downing Street superforecaster—a specialist who advises the Prime Minister’s office on how policy is likely to be received by the electorate—has disappeared without a trace. Claude Whelan, who was once head of MI5, has been tasked with tracking her down.
But the trail leads him straight back to Regent’s Park itself, with First Desk Diana Taverner as chief suspect. Has Taverner overplayed her hand at last? Meanwhile, her Russian counterpart, Moscow intelligence’s First Desk, has cheekily showed up in London and shaken off his escort. Are the two unfortunate events connected? …
There are bad actors everywhere, and they usually get their comeuppance before the credits roll. But politics is a dirty business, and in a world where lying, cheating and backstabbing are the norm …
I flew into Tromsø, Norway summer 2022. BUT Scandinavian Airlines left my bicycle sitting in Heathrow airport for 5 weeks. … And finally sent it back to Canada. ☹️
Making the best of it, I rented bikes in Tromsø and finally travelled by bus down to Lofoten.
I decided to try again summer 2023. And this time my bike and gear did make it to Tromsø.
Tromsø
Hoo hoo.
Cycling the north of Norway was my #1 goal following the pandemic.
Tromsø to Lofoten/ Bodo is the most interesting section, for me.
I spent 2 days in Tromsø getting the bike set-up and packing groceries. Then set off south on a Komoot app route I bought from guru Matthew of CycleNorway.com.
So far it’s mostly been the very popular Eurovelo 1 cycling route.
Day 1 — July 1st, 2023
To start I took a 64km detour 😀 to hike Brosmetinden. Beautiful weather. But WINDY.
That night I set up the tent at Grotfjord beach. Free and fantastic. By law you can camp almost anywhere in Norway at no cost.
Day 2 — July 2nd, 2023
I headed for quaint Hillesøya, a short detour off my route.
There’s a steep day hikeup Nordkollen that’s interesting. Rope and chain assist.
I stash my bike in the trees for these hikes.
I put the metal to the pedal to make it to a favourite campsite from the previous summer.
Fjordgård, Senja
Norway is expensive. I rarely eat at restaurants.
Camp cooking is great — but I do prefer having a picnic table.
Day 3 — July 3rd, 2023
Weather forecast was excellent for one of my main highlights of Norway. The Hesten / Segla hike.
I’d climbed Segla in 2022, posting my most experimental and worst VIDEO yet. 😀
From Segla I cycled south until reaching a tunnel temporarily closed to cyclists. After an hour or so of waiting around, two of us crossed by putting our bikes and gear inside vehicles.
This young German speed demon (140km/day) and I set up our tents at yet another amazing free government campsite called Ersfjordstranda outdoor recreation area.
Day 4 — July 4th, 2023
The great weather continued.
But for reasons unknown, this July Senja island was tortured by big, slow horseflies. I put on my rain suit for protection.
I was waiting for the ferry — FREE for cyclists in Norway — to the next island ➙ Andøya.
Weirdly, I never saw another horse fly. Only Senja island was plagued.
Early evening I came upon this surprisingly modern building.
An ultra modern toilet block. At a push of a button, those windows could be made opaque. Cool.
I decided to set up my tent. It was me and the sheep.
Day 5 — July 5th, 2023
The following day was long and uneventful. No hikes.
The bike and gear working perfectly, my main complaints were muscular soreness in the upper back and neck. I tried to take more short breaks. I’m in no rush.
Andøya is less popular with tourists. The bog better for peat and cloudberries.
So far as I’ve heard from cyclists, France is best set-up. Germany and Austria quickly improving.
Personally, I’d go to Germany next. In addition, Germany is offering a rail pass for tourists ➙ €49 / month for anywhere in the country. You could hop on some trains with a bike.
It follows U.S. Secret Service agent Ethan Burke as he unravels the mystery surrounding his unanticipated arrival in the small town of Wayward Pines, Idaho, following a devastating car accident. …
The residents of this picturesque town don’t know how they got there and are forbidden to talk about their prior lives. An electric fence surrounds the town, and the residents are under 24-hour surveillance. The mysteries and horrors of the town build until Ethan discovers its secret. Then he must do his part to keep Wayward Pines protected from threats both within and beyond the fence.
The series covers themes of isolation, bucolic Americana, time-displacement, man vs nature, human evolution, and cryonics. …
HERE IS HOW platforms die: First, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die. …
I call this enshittification, …
Amazon, Facebook, Tiktok. All of them.
The Google search engine app on my phone is totally ‘enshittified’ — nobody could appreciate so many inappropriate advertisements.
Wikipedia is not enshittified.
Why?
It’s not based on advertising. Ads are the main reason the internet is getting enshittified.
I don’t suffer much because I have every ad blocker known to man working in the Chrome browser. I rarely see ads, except on my phone.
Facebook ads are hardest to avoid.
I pay for YouTube Premium to avoid ads in the middle of my videos.
In Slough House, the London outpost for disgraced MI5 spies, memories are stirring, all of them bad. Catherine Standish is buying booze again, Louisa Guy is raking over the ashes of lost love, and new recruit Lech Wicinski, whose sins make him an outcast even among the slow horses, is determined to discover who destroyed his career, even if he tears his life apart in the process.
Meanwhile, in Regent’s Park, Diana Taverner’s tenure as First Desk is running into difficulties. If she’s going to make the Service fit for purpose, she might have to make deals with a familiar old devil . . .
And with winter taking its grip, Jackson Lamb would sooner be left brooding in peace, but even he can’t ignore the dried blood on his carpets. So when the man responsible for killing a slow horse breaks cover at last, Lamb sends the slow horses out to even the score.
Rick McCharles 