Midnight Sun

This short Norwegian thriller focuses on an antihero (in this case a sympathetic one) involved with a brutal Oslo crime lord known as the Fisherman. The story unfolds from the perspective of Jon, who uses his reputation as a killer to gain a high-paying job as assassin for the Fisherman in order to pay for medication for his leukemia-stricken daughter. When Jon is morally unable to fulfill an assigned contract, he’s forced to flee the Fisherman’s wrath—and Oslo—for a map speck above the Arctic Circle populated by a strict religious sect. There he begins a new life, making friends and enemies, and falling in love with a young widow, while never forgetting that, eventually, he’ll have to deal with the Fisherman. Singer-songwriter Gordon, cofounder of the alt rock band Sonic Youth, reads for the audio edition of this male-narrated novel. Gordon’s voice, though smoky and properly dramatic when necessary, is clearly feminine. While this may serve the author’s prose well enough in general, the gender contrast has a tendency to undermine some of the novel’s more violent and more intimate passages.[em] A Knopf hardcover. (Feb.) [/em]