In two noir novels, crime lurks beneath small town life in Norway and New England

NPR's Book of the Day

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Books, Arts

4.2 • 672 Ratings

🗓️ 21 March 2025

⏱️ 18 minutes

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Summary

In their new noir novels, authors Joseph Finder and Jo Nesbø choose small towns as the settings for dark plotlines. First, Finder's The Oligarch's Daughter follows a man named Paul who has built a new life under a new name in New Hampshire. He's on the run from a Russian oligarch, who happens to be his father-in-law. In today's episode, Finder speaks with NPR's Mary Louise Kelly about the difficulty of disappearing in today's era of surveillance technology, the difference between typical wealth and oligarch wealth, and how the Russian oligarch class' status has shifted under President Vladimir Putin. Then, one of the protagonists in Nesbø's Blood Ties is Roy, a 35-year-old mass murderer who's ready to start a family. Nesbø says his challenge was to make Roy someone readers could root for. In today's episode, the author speaks with NPR's Kelly about a piece of advice he received from Christopher Nolan, the way small towns hold secrets, and how writing lyrics prepared him to write novels.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, it's NPR's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbong. Today we're digging into the deep, dark
0:07.2	underbelly of humanity with two noir crime books. In a bit, we'll hear from a writer who has to
0:12.7	pull off the impossible, which is write a likable mass murderer. But first, the oligarch's
0:18.6	daughter is a new thriller from writer Joseph Finder,
0:21.1	and it's one of those potty, propulsive books that you kind of need a pen and paper to keep
0:26.2	track of all the double-crossing and hidden identities. Finders spoke with MPRs and Mary Louise
0:30.5	Kelly about how difficult it is to write a thriller set in the modern day with all the surveillance
0:35.9	technology that we have now, and still have a main
0:39.2	character who is skilled enough to disappear.
0:42.9	That's ahead.
0:44.3	In the U.S., national security news can feel far away from daily life.
0:49.2	Distant wars, murky conflicts, diplomacy behind closed doors on our our new show, Sources and Methods.
0:55.7	NPR reporters on the ground bring you stories of real people,
0:59.5	helping you understand why distant events matter here at home.
1:03.3	Listen to sources and methods on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
1:08.6	The opening pages of the novel The Oligarch's Daughter introduce us to a man named
1:14.4	Grant Anderson. He builds boats in New England. It is early morning. He is preparing to take a new
1:20.6	client out on a fishing charter. The man arrives at the dock, and Grant Anderson detects a whiff of a Slavic accent, which makes his
1:30.2	stomach turn. Turns out, boat builder Grant Anderson is not the man, he claims to be. He is in
1:36.1	hiding on the run from Russians who want him dead, and his client is actually a hitman
1:42.2	there to kill him. Joseph Fender is the author of this cat and mouse tail, and he's here with me now.
1:47.9	Joseph Fender, welcome.
	...

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