The Butterfly Effect [Paperback]

Pernille Rygg (Author), Joan Tate (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1997

Igi Heitman is a researcher. Psychology is her field, which she is trying to adapt to modern chaos theory. Her husband, whom she loves, is a transvestite. As for her father, a private investigator, he died in a hit-and-run accident. She ends up pursuing the truth about her father's death.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In a wintry Scandinavian landscape, a restless young woman scientist estranged from a wealthy parent gets involved in the investigation of the death of someone close to her. No, it's not Smilla's Sense of Snow, but Norwegian Rygg has written an equally atmospheric (and derivative) first novel. Igi Heitmann is a researcher trying to link psychology with chaos theory when her father--a former policeman now working as a PI in Oslo--is killed by a hit-and-run driver. Clearing out his seedy office, Igi finds a butterfly pendant and the address of a young woman, whose body, including two bullets in her skull, turns up in a mound of plowed snow. In a burning suburban church, Igi discovers the body of another woman, long missing. Are the three deaths connected? Does it snow in Norway? Aided and/or hindered by a loving transvestite husband, a simpering mother now married to a rich lawyer and her father's former police partner, the dour but dauntless Igi uncovers a web of child abuse, Satanic worship, parental misconduct and psychological flummery that signal the influences of Ross Macdonald and Raymond Chandler, as well as Peter HYeg. Veteran Ingmar Bergman translator Joan Tate's English version makes Rygg's present-tense tale move briskly, giving a distinctive voice to the life and crimes of another country not our own.

Copyright 1998 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Harvill Pr (June 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1860463126
• ISBN-13: 978-1860463129
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,755,266 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Chaos in Oslo, May 3, 2000

By 

Manda Leong Johnston (Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Butterfly Effect (Hardcover)

Igi (Inger Birgitte) Heitman is a researcher at the univeristy of Oslo. She's trying to link psychology to chaos theory, but after her father dies in a hit-and-run accident she finds herself following up his last job as a private investigator. She hopes to find the truth about his death, but instead is drawn into the lives of an increasing number of people, all somehow connected to Siv Underland, the missing woman at the centre of her father's final case.

Apart from enjoying this thriller for its story, I got a real feel for what it would be like to live in Oslo in winter. Brrr! This book has been understandably compared to "Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow", for both its chilly setting and its intriguing narrative.

2 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Chaos in Oslo, May 3, 2000

By 

Manda Leong Johnston (Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Butterfly Effect (Paperback)

Igi (Inger Birgitte) Heitman is a researcher at the univeristy of Oslo. She's trying to link psychology to chaos theory, but after her father dies in a hit-and-run accident she finds herself following up his last job as a private investigator. She hopes to find the truth about his death, but instead is drawn into the lives of an increasing number of people, all somehow connected to Siv Underland, the missing woman at the centre of her father's final case.

Apart from enjoying this thriller for its story, I got a real feel for what it would be like to live in Oslo in winter. Brrr! This book has been understandably compared to "Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow", for both its chilly setting and its intriguing narrative.

0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Chaos in Oslo, May 3, 2000

By 

Manda Leong Johnston (Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Butterfly Effect (Paperback)

Igi (Inger Birgitte) Heitman is a researcher at the univeristy of Oslo. She's trying to link psychology to chaos theory, but after her father dies in a hit-and-run accident she finds herself following up his last job as a private investigator. She hopes to find the truth about his death, but instead is drawn into the lives of an increasing number of people, all somehow connected to Siv Underland, the missing woman at the centre of her father's final case.

Apart from enjoying this thriller for its story, I got a real feel for what it would be like to live in Oslo in winter. Brrr! This book has been understandably compared to "Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow", for both its chilly setting and its intriguing narrative.