The internationally acclaimed author of The Dream Life of Sukhanov now returns to gift us with Forty Rooms, which outshines even that prizewinning novel. Totally original in conception and magnificently executed, Forty Rooms is mysterious, withholding, and ultimately emotionally devastating. Olga Grushin is dealing with issues of women’s identity, of women’s choices, that no modern novel has explored so deeply. “Forty rooms” is a conceit: it proposes that a modern woman will inhabit forty rooms in her lifetime. They form her biography, from childhood to death. For our protagonist, the much-loved child of a late marriage, the first rooms she is aware of as she nears the age of five are those that make up her family’s Moscow apartment. We follow this child as she reaches adolescence, leaves home to study in America, and slowly discovers sexual happiness and love. But her hunger for adventure and her longing to be a great poet conspire to kill the affair. She seems to have made her choice. But one day she runs into a college classmate. He is sure of his path through life, and he is protective of her. (He is also a great cook.) They drift into an affair and marriage. What follows are the decades of births and deaths, the celebrations, material accumulations, and home comforts—until one day, her children grown and gone, her husband absent, she finds herself alone except for the ghosts of her youth, who have come back to haunt and even taunt her. Compelling and complex, Forty Rooms is also profoundly affecting, its ending shattering but true. We know that Mrs. Caldwell (for that is the only name by which we know her) has died. Was it a life well lived? Quite likely. Was it a life complete? Does such a life ever really exist? Life is, after all, full of trade-offs and choices. Who is to say her path was not well taken? It is this ambiguity that is at the heart of this provocative novel.

It’s a cold and dark winter afternoon when a doctor knocks on detective Asbjørn Krag’s door. He’s worried about his patient, who has turned overnight from a cheerful, eccentric elderly gentleman into a shivering wreck. Clearly he’s terrified – but can a series of minor incidents at his isolated country house really be the cause? And why won’t he tell anyone what he fears? Krag must go undercover as a guest at an isolated Norwegian mansion to try prevent a murder in its snowy grounds, and to find the secret behind the three mysterious rooms. Sven Elvestad, who also wrote under the pseudonym Stein Riverton, was one of Norway’s greatest crime writers. A journalist by training, he was the first foreign journalist to interview Adolf Hitler and was famous for stunts such as spending a day in a circus lion’s cage. His first novel was published in 1907 and he went on to write nearly a hundred novels, many featuring detective Asbjørn Krag. Only a few of his works have ever been translated into English, despite enjoying widespread success across Europe. Norway’s yearly Riverton prize for the best crime novel is named after him. This new translation features an introduction by Nils Nordberg, radio drama producer and Norwegian authority on crime fiction. “A brisk, pacey and thoroughly entertaining page-turner by one of crime fiction’s unsung heroes…well worth rediscovering.” – Tom Mead, author of Death and the Conjuror “An enjoyable example of the traditional murder mystery.”– Martin Edwards, novelist and author of The Life of Crime

Grounded in the authors’ expert guidance, this e-book will give your staff the knowledge they need to keep your library out of messy legal problems.