inamerata's review against another edition
dark
tense
4.0
Blessed Are Those Who Thirst is both a solid sequel and mystery/thriller in its own right. I enjoyed this even more than Blind Goddess, and I wonder if part of that is the skill of the new translator, Anne Bruce. The flow here is more engaging, while retaining a distinctive voice.
It helps a lot because the plot is heavy: Hanne is tracking a serial rapist and killer who targets immigrants, while an ethnically Norwegian woman who survived an attack struggles to cope. Holt does a good job portraying how society at large enables these crimes — the killer and Hanne both know it — by classifying some people as forgettable, expendable, or even deserving of wrongdoing. It was interesting to see the characters explore what justice means in these situations, and I was satisfied with the ending.
To help balance such grim material, we see Hanne have more sweet, lighter interactions with her girlfriend Cecile and friend/colleague Billy T, which is nice. She is still struggling with internalized homophobia and fears of what might happen if she were outed, but reaches the point she can let the smallest, closest corners of two of her worlds intersect.
My biggest complaint is we never learn the name of the Iranian woman. I understand it not being revealed immediately to show her isolation and the language barriers, but she’s also a POV character! Why don’t we know her name when we are in her own head, and see her other thoughts? This undermined the care and recognition of outsiders the rest of the novel worked toward.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape, Racism, Murder, and Misogyny
Moderate: Xenophobia and Homophobia
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