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1222

(Hanne Wilhelmsen #8)

Anne Holt,

Marlaine Delargy (Translator)

3.35 · Rating details · 4,812 ratings · 727 reviews

1222 is the story of how a small group of people find themselves stuck in a hotel during an apocalyptic snow storm. Following a dramatic train derailment at Finse, the conflict between the survivors escalates while a furious hurricane threatens the unprotected village. Nobody is there to help, and there is no way out of the inferno for the survivors hiding out. On the firs ...more

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Hardcover, 320 pages

Published December 1st 2010 by Corvus (first published 2007)

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Dec 13, 2011 Luanne Ollivier rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I had never heard of Anne Holt before - she's described as Norway's #1 bestselling crime writer. After finishing her latest book 1222, I can see why - and I will be hunting down her backlist.

1222 features one of Holt's recurring characters - Hanne Wilhelmsen. Hanne is not a stereotypical protagonist. She's wheelchair bound, having been paralyzed from the waist down in a police shoot out four years ago. She's a lesbian, a loner and astute. Oh, and she really doesn't like people at all, even more I had never heard of Anne Holt before - she's described as Norway's #1 bestselling crime writer. After finishing her latest book 1222, I can see why - and I will be hunting down her backlist.

1222 features one of Holt's recurring characters - Hanne Wilhelmsen. Hanne is not a stereotypical protagonist. She's wheelchair bound, having been paralyzed from the waist down in a police shoot out four years ago. She's a lesbian, a loner and astute. Oh, and she really doesn't like people at all, even more so since her accident.

'It's having people close to me that I find difficult. I am interested in people, but I don't want people to be interested in me. A very taxing situation. At least it is if you surround yourself with friends and colleagues, and if you have to work in a team - as you do in the police. When I got shot and almost died, I ran out of strength. I was perfectly happy sitting there, all by myself."

Hanne is on a train to see a specialist about her paralysis. When the train derails in a snowstorm high above any settlement, the passengers are forced to take refuge in a hotel at the top of the mountain. Communication is cut off as the storm rages on. And someone else is full of rage as well - a clergy man is found shot. Hanne is recognized and reluctantly conscripted to the team that seems to be taking charge - a lawyer, a doctor, and the hotel manager. The storm is increasing in ferocity - and there's a murderer among them. And what about that extra car on the train - the one with armed guards?

I loved this book so much! The character of Hanne was different, not a by the numbers detective. She somewhat reminded me of Inger Ash Wolfe's Hazel Micallef character. Stubborn, sardonic, irascible and highly observant.

"Like other practised liars, he had stuck close to the truth. As a rule, it's the sensible thing to do, but Adrian had given me a piece of a jigsaw puzzle without realizing that I only needed a fragment of sky to sense the outline of the entire finished picture."

1222 has been likened to Agatha Christie's 'locked room' mysteries. The comparison is quite apt. Hanne herself notes "I thought about Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None. I immediately tried to dismiss the thought. And Then There were None is a story that doesn't exactly have a happy ending."

Each chapter has a clever title page listing the Beaufort Scale, a wind rating that starts at one and rises to 12, ratcheting up as the tension increases in the hotel.

I truly had no idea who the murderer was until the very end. The hotel is populated with many possibilities. Indeed, the various characters are half the fun of this read. Hanne's unveiling of the perpetrator at the end and her reasoning were right there before me the whole time, but I hadn't seen it.

This was a five star read for me - and a perfect read for a blustery winter day. Releases on December 27, 2011 ...more

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Dec 18, 2011 Emma rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Why do I keep getting talked into reading books like these?

Yes, I get it, Hanne is an anti-hero. She hates people. She is extremely, antisocial, embittered and intolerant…… hmm BECAUSE she’s a wheelchair user!? (Ta-da! Makes sense now doesn’t it?) Despite being gay, disabled, married to a Muslim, she still finds room to be totally repellent and prejudiced towards someone with Dwarfism (i.e. the doctor Magnus Streng.)

I had to pick my jaw up off the floor when I read her characterisation of Streng Why do I keep getting talked into reading books like these?

Yes, I get it, Hanne is an anti-hero. She hates people. She is extremely, antisocial, embittered and intolerant…… hmm BECAUSE she’s a wheelchair user!? (Ta-da! Makes sense now doesn’t it?) Despite being gay, disabled, married to a Muslim, she still finds room to be totally repellent and prejudiced towards someone with Dwarfism (i.e. the doctor Magnus Streng.)

I had to pick my jaw up off the floor when I read her characterisation of Streng but thought perhaps there would be a realisation/revelation by the main character Hanne, later in the book, that Streng “is a human being too” (think Sesame Street). The only reason I kept reading this awful book was to see why she wrote stuff like this:

“I myself was taken care of by the dwarf. He couldn’t have been more than 140 centimetres tall. As if to compensate for this, he was exactly the same width. His head was too big for his body, and his arms were even shorter, comparatively speaking, than those I had seen in persons of restricted growth before. I tried not to stare.”
“As the little doctor moved through the room with an odd, rolling gait, the crowd parted before him like Moses parting the Red Sea…. His voice was surprisingly deep. I had expected some kind of helium voice, as if he were an entertainer at a children’s party. As it would be extremely impolite not to look at the doctor when he was speaking to me, and my closed eyes might suggest that I felt worse than I actually did, I opened them. ‘Magnus Streng,’ he said, taking my reluctant right hand in a thick, stubby paw. I mumbled my name and couldn’t help thinking that the doctor’s parents must have had a very particular sense of humour. Magnus. The Great One.” (There's more where that came from but it's too depressing to quote it all.)

My conclusion: WHAT. THE. F***?

So, she wants us to hate Hanne for being a bigot? Well, it worked. Except it’s more likely that Holt is actually a completely bigoted idiot. She can’t characterise disabled people to save herself. If you’re listening Holt, please do your research. We shouldn't have to read this dross.

Apart from the utterly weird characterisation of the dwarf, every other conceivable part of this book is just paint-by-numbers genre fare. Poor. Very poor. I'm afraid a one star review might be too good for it.
...more

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Jan 29, 2017 Emma Turi rated it really liked it

I really enjoyed this book in the Hanne Wilhelmsen, I had not read the book before, therefore was a bit shocked to find out about her situation. I liked this book especially as it all occurs after an accident on a train and all the people after the accident are holed up in a hotel. Hanne Wilhelmsen who is not a police officer anymore, suddenly finds herself having to be the person in charge of the investigation. There is also some personal information about Hanne and how she has changed due to w ...more

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Jun 02, 2015 Book Riot Community added it

Shelves: mystery

Norwegian crime novel starring Hanne Wilhelmsen, a retired police detective, paraplegic, lesbian, and semi-misanthrope. A powerful snowstorm hits Norway, and the train Hanne is taking from Oslo to Bergen derails. Miraculously, all 269 passengers survive—the only casualty was the train’s engineer—and hole up in a nearby hotel to wait out the storm. And that, of course, is when the murders start. Hanne Wilhelmsen is my new favorite detective: she’s a woman who takes advantage of the prejudices and ...more

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Aug 20, 2015 Jim Fonseca rated it liked it

Shelves: norwegian-authors

What could be more Norwegian than having your train break down and being trapped in an isolated mountain lodge for days during a blizzard while the wind howls and breaks the windows? Apparently secret service agents were aboard the train and there are a lot of mysterious goings on. Then the bodies start to drop. Detective Hanne Wilhelmsen happened to be on the train and she is coerced out of retirement to help solve the deaths. Hanne is confined to a wheel chair and seems to be trying to be as u ...more

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Jul 05, 2019 Mara rated it it was ok

Shelves: recommended-to-me, isolated-closed-circle-mystery

It took me an unusually long time to read this one, simply because I was not enjoying it. It pains me to say that honestly, because this book is basically all my catnip. The authorial voice/writing in this just made it a slog. I'm not sure if this can be chalked up to being a book in translation, but whatever the root cause, I personally just didn't enjoy my time with this book. Very fun/strong setup for an isolated closed circle mystery, though, so worth giving a try to see if you can like it b ...more

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Jan 22, 2017 Jane rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery, reviewed, library, scandinavia

Locked room mystery suspense-filled all through, until weak and far-fetched ending.

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Jan 16, 2011 Sonia rated it really liked it

Back in November, I spent a day driving to various places for work, and so was listening to Radio 4 and there was an interview with Anne Holt who I had never heard of.

She is Norwegian, and they were talking about the sudden popularity of Scandinavian crime books, the fact that she seems pretty scathing about Norwegians in her books and her latest book that had just been translsated and was about to be released in the UK – 1222. I added it to my wishlist, and was delighted to get an Amazon remind Back in November, I spent a day driving to various places for work, and so was listening to Radio 4 and there was an interview with Anne Holt who I had never heard of.

She is Norwegian, and they were talking about the sudden popularity of Scandinavian crime books, the fact that she seems pretty scathing about Norwegians in her books and her latest book that had just been translsated and was about to be released in the UK – 1222. I added it to my wishlist, and was delighted to get an Amazon reminder of it, informing me that it was available on Kindle for the princely sum of £1. Result!

Anne Holt herself used to work for the Oslo Police Department and was in fact Norway’s Minister for Justice back in the 90s.

This is the most recent in her series of books featuring detective Hanne Wilhelmson, of which I believe there have been 8 books since 1993. She stressed that this story easily stood alone as a story, and I loved the sound of it, so thought i’d give it a go.

1222 refers to how many metres above sea level the highest station on the oslo to Bergen train route is. The story starts slap bang (no pun intended) in the train crashing just outside the station during a snowstorm.

Only the driver dies in the crash and all of the passengers are rescued and moved to a nearby hotel. There are just under 200 of them, including Hanne Wilhelmson. The snowstorm becomes worse, effectively cutting off any chance of rescue, the train being moved, and any communication with the rest of the world. And then, of course, there is the case of the mysterious ‘extra carriage’ on the train of which speculation is rife!

The passengers and hotel staff settle in for what looks like it could be a long stay, and all of their personalities etc start to come out. And then, in the morning, one of the most prolific passengers – a prolific football-loving priest – is found frozen dead outside in the snow and ice. But it wasn’t the cold that killed him, it was a bullet through the head. there is a murderer in their midst.

In the interview, Holt said that she wanted to write a story that had elements of the old Agatha Christie whodunnits where the detectives were in an isolated situation and had to use their own detecting skills without any help from technology, databases or a team.

Well, that’s certainly how it worked – it was pretty claustrophobic…the only thing that didn’t really work for me was the fact that there were supposedly a couple of hundred people there. The story obviously centred in on just a handful (there were probably about 15 main characters), and so there were tens of people supposedly ‘around’ that were completely uninvolved in the story but still in the isolated situation.

Because of the dramatic start, and the very descriptive narrative, the unfamiliar landscape and situation and the hints at what was to come, I felt extremely drawn in from the book right from the first few pages – and it didn’t let up! i really enjoyed it.

I must admit, there was a complete light bulb moment for me when I felt that I had worked out ‘whodunnit’, but at least you’re kept guessing and don’t have suspicions confirmed until right at the end. There was just one twist in the tale in the last couple of pages that was a bit superfluous, daft and made me groan – it could have done without that, and it added nothing to the story.

Apart from that – brilliant. Tense, different and well written. I’d give another Anne Holt book a go! ...more

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Oct 19, 2011 Katy rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommends it for: fans of mysteries, suspense/thrillers, great writing

Recommended to Katy by: NetGalley

Shelves: galley-for-review, net-galley, ebook

Please note: I read and reviewed this book in Dec. 2011. Updating the formatting and adding a disclosure.

Disclosure: I received a free e-galley copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Genre: Mystery/Thriller/Suspense
Reading Level: Adult

My Synopsis: Hanne Wilhelmsen used to work for the police until a bullet severed her spine between the 10th and 11th vertebrae, leaving her paralyzed from the waist down. She is on a train to Bergen in the middle Please note: I read and reviewed this book in Dec. 2011. Updating the formatting and adding a disclosure.

Disclosure: I received a free e-galley copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Genre: Mystery/Thriller/Suspense
Reading Level: Adult

My Synopsis: Hanne Wilhelmsen used to work for the police until a bullet severed her spine between the 10th and 11th vertebrae, leaving her paralyzed from the waist down. She is on a train to Bergen in the middle of winter, on her way to see an American specialist because of health problems she has been experiencing, when the train is derailed. Fortunately they were only just past` the station and near to a hotel that was mostly empty at the time, and the only person killed in the wreck was the driver of the train. However, that first night, there is a murder. And another the second night. What is happening? Who is the killer? And what about the mysterious extra carriage at the end of the train – who is in it? Why is there an armed guard? Will Hanne overcome her self-imposed isolation and help find the answers?

My Thoughts: I really loved this book. Apparently it is an homage to Agatha Christie’s “And Then There Were None” (also known in some areas as “Ten Little Indians”). The plot moved quickly, and there were lots of bits of subtle humor interspersed among the tension and suspense. The characters were wonderfully portrayed – while discussing the book with my husband I commented that you know a writer is good if you become attracted to one of the characters simply based upon the description and characterization, and that person’s personality. Magnus Streng was one of my favorite characters – he was absolutely fascinating and if he were a real person, I’d love to meet him. Edit: I should point out I mentioned to someone that I had read only one book with a character to whom I had become strongly attracted, and that was this book and Magnus Streng. So, again, impressive. End Edit

I strongly recommend this book to people who enjoy a good mystery, suspense/thriller, or simply good writing – you won’t be disappointed – it is wonderful! ...more

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May 29, 2018 Dean Cummings rated it really liked it · review of another edition

The writer Deb Caletti said, “When you go looking for rescue, you end up trapped in your own weakness.”

For me, this captured the theme of Anne Holt’s “1222“the story that started on Wednesday, February 14, 2007 when train # 601, travelling from Oslo to Bergen derailed in the midst of a hurricane named “Olga.” Of the 269 people on board, only one perished as a result of the accident, the train conductor Einar Holter.

Shortly after the accident, the passengers were rescued, whisked off to a nearb ...more

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Nov 19, 2015 ✿ Deni rated it did not like it

Shelves: 2015

On the cover of the copy I borrowed from the library (I'm glad I didn't buy it!) it says: "Like a mash-up of Stieg Larsson, Jeffrey Deaver and Agatha Christie", and there are a couple of comments also mentioning Christie, who is one of my favourite writers, so I thought I would enjoy this book... well, I didn't!

I actually think the plot could be very entertaining if developed correctly: theres is a mention of Christie's "And then there were none" in the book, as they are also trapped with a murd On the cover of the copy I borrowed from the library (I'm glad I didn't buy it!) it says: "Like a mash-up of Stieg Larsson, Jeffrey Deaver and Agatha Christie", and there are a couple of comments also mentioning Christie, who is one of my favourite writers, so I thought I would enjoy this book... well, I didn't!

I actually think the plot could be very entertaining if developed correctly: theres is a mention of Christie's "And then there were none" in the book, as they are also trapped with a murderer without a chance to escape for days and days. However, this story was slow, boring and, at times, it didn't even make sense, as there were details that weren't properly explained, for example, there is a conversation that literally says that there were 194 people in the hotel complex and, ADDING four more people it makes 118... well, this makes sense after a few pages, but it wasn't explained there and then, so it left me wondering if I had missed something or I was just really bad at maths...

Also I hated the characters: they were very cliche and I specially disliked Hanne, the main character, just because she is a grumpy bitch, which, it turns out is not because she is in a wheel chair, it's just the way she is and was already like that before she got paralysed. She is just not likeable, I think the writer was aiming at a character similar to Lisbeth Salander, but just got an annoying and stubborn bitch, who just took pleasure in annoying other people for the sake of it. She even refused to have a room at the hotel and chose to sleep in the lobby... why? I mean, if one of your characters is going to do that, at least explain why she is doing it.

And then, there is the end: (view spoiler)

I don't like giving bad reviews to books, as I appreciate there is a lot of hard work behind it, but in this case I can't even sugar coat how much I disliked this book. ...more

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Jan 01, 2012 Carol rated it liked it

Recommended to Carol by: publisher review?

Shelves: fiction

The premise of 1222 interested me from the start. I wish I knew where I heard about this book. I thought the main character, Hanne Wilhelmsen, an ex-police woman, paralyzed by a bullet, living a bland life in her wheelchair, sounded intriguing. I didn't realize at the outset that it was the eighth in a series from Norwegian author Anne Holt but the first to be translated into English. It can easily be read as a stand-alone but you probably will want to know more about that bullet and some other The premise of 1222 interested me from the start. I wish I knew where I heard about this book. I thought the main character, Hanne Wilhelmsen, an ex-police woman, paralyzed by a bullet, living a bland life in her wheelchair, sounded intriguing. I didn't realize at the outset that it was the eighth in a series from Norwegian author Anne Holt but the first to be translated into English. It can easily be read as a stand-alone but you probably will want to know more about that bullet and some other things about Hanne's personal life.

1222 is also billed as a locked room mystery of which I am a great fan. I think it qualifies as such in a looser sense than some I've read. The story starts quickly with a the derailment of the Oslo-Bergen train, caused by a patch of ice outside of one of many tunnels. The science of this is nicely explained though I'm still not certain I quite understand it. Fortunately for the passengers, only the driver is killed. Also fortunate for all is that the accident happens close to the Finse Station and an excellent hotel where the remaining passengers, including Hanne are offloaded for shelter. Good fortune runs out and the killing begins! As all are "locked in" by a raging snowstorm with no chance for rescue until it abates, you've got all the suspects and through Hanne's eyes must decide the who, what, and why.

I really liked the character Hanne Wilhelmsen and some of the other players in this mystery. The best of these are 15 year old Adrian described as "a petty criminal, a little shit" and a height challenged doctor named Magnus Streng who originally treats Hanna's gory injury in the train wreck. I think the story could have moved more quickly after it's" hit the ground running start" but I hung in there. I was not completely satisfied with the ending as I couldn't have predicted the killer from the clues. I loved that the title is taken from the location of the Finse Station, 1222 meters above sea level. I also really liked the use of The Beaufort Scale for Wind, beginning with 0 for Calm and ending with12 for Hurricane, as chapter headings with the promise of the increasing speed of impending disaster. Very clever.

All in all a pleasant read with great descriptions of the cold, bleak locale and some interesting introspection by the main character. The first in the Hanne Wilhelmsen series, Blind Goddess, comes to our shores June 2012. I just might pick this up. ...more

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May 29, 2013 Lukasz Pruski rated it it was ok

"Life is beautiful. Until vodka freezes", a friend of mine, Witek, used to say. Most of the action in Anne Holt's thriller "1222" happens when the temperature outside is below freezing point of 80-proof vodka.

A train from Oslo to Bergen (Norway) crashes. All passengers, some 200 of them, luckily survive and find shelter in a nearby hotel. However, because of a monster winter storm combined with a hurricane of unprecedented magnitude, the hotel is totally snowed in and any rescue efforts from the "Life is beautiful. Until vodka freezes", a friend of mine, Witek, used to say. Most of the action in Anne Holt's thriller "1222" happens when the temperature outside is below freezing point of 80-proof vodka.

A train from Oslo to Bergen (Norway) crashes. All passengers, some 200 of them, luckily survive and find shelter in a nearby hotel. However, because of a monster winter storm combined with a hurricane of unprecedented magnitude, the hotel is totally snowed in and any rescue efforts from the outside world are doomed to fail. One of the passengers is found shot to death. And that's just the beginning of the ordeal. Hanne Wilhelmsen, a wheelchair-bound ex-police detective, helped by several other passengers and hotel staff is trying to solve the case. The scenario much resembles 1970's disaster movies, with a typical menagerie of disaster film characters. Unfortunately, to me, the quality of the book is on par with quality of these movies.

Readers who like books that are heavily plot-driven might rate "1222" quite highly. The plot does move fast, the tension keeps rising, and there are numerous surprises. The cliché phrase 'page turner' describes this book well. Alas, the novel is not written well. Many of the main characters, like Adrian, Magnus, Kari Thue, are caricatures rather than real people. To use the author's own phrase, they are 'paper dolls'. When I read well-written books I often get the feeling that I personally know the characters. None of this happens here. What's worse, I totally do not care about any of the characters, and least of all about Hanna.

Many aspects of Ms. Holt's prose are annoying. For instance, she uses a lame writing device: just about when a character is to divulge a major secret, there is some interruption, and then it is too late. The twelve chapters of the novel are prefaced by meteorological characterizations of each step in Beaufort scale; they read much better than Ms. Holt's descriptions. The author uses six sentences to describe how Magnus wipes his mouth of jam and cream (pages 243-244 of hardcover edition). Yet on pages 145-146 she provides non-trivial observations on the nature of religion. Accidental lapse into decent writing?

It may be a good thriller for many readers, just not for me.

One and a half stars.
...more

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May 04, 2012 Janet rated it did not like it

Shelves: gave-up

I really wanted to like this. I read one of Holt's other books, but this one was just...just...boring. I didn't know till I got into it that it's not a stand-alone book but one of a series-maybe if I'd read the previous ones, I'd like this one more but I doubt it.

Hanne, the main character and narrator, has been described as "unlikable" by other reviewers, but I think she's pretty much antisocial and was that way before the shooting that left her paralyzed. That doesn't bother me-what bothered m ...more

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Jun 24, 2012 Kevin rated it did not like it

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Jan 23, 2016 Nick Davies rated it it was ok

Shelves: 2016

An odd one, as in a more receptive mood I might've enjoyed it more. This Scandinavian crime thriller had a very interesting set-up (a train full of passengers is forced to hole up in a Norwegian mountain hotel, then as they're snowed in.. people get murdered) but for me it wasn't my kind of book. The cover blurb makes reference to similarities with Agatha Christie, and I can understand this, but the 'closed room' nature of the plot and the sassy, thoughtful, intelligent, observant female detecti ...more

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Jul 09, 2012 Paul rated it liked it

Shelves: mystery

So I tried another Scandanavian mystery, this one by Norwegian writer Anne Holt and featuring a wheelchair-bound former policewoman named Hanne Wilhelmsen, the first of this series (I believe) to be translated into English. I liked what I read, though I'm not much into "closed room" mysteries. Granted that murders can occur in a setting like the one described in the novel, where a trainload of people are trapped inside a mountain hotel during a violent snowstorm; the set piece denouement, where ...more

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Feb 22, 2013 Wanda rated it liked it

Shelves: female-authors, public-library, read-in-2016, mysteries-thrillers, scandinavian-authors, crime

A mystery more typical of Agatha Christie than most Scandinavian authors. In fact, Ms. Christie is mention several times and I think this novel is meant as an homage to her. It is a “closed room” mystery—although the surroundings are a hotel by a train station. The train has derailed and the passengers are rescued, all during a howling blizzard. The severity of the blizzard keeps everyone in place and inside. One by one, their numbers decrease, sometimes through natural causes, but also through ...more

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Jul 31, 2020 Shawn Hill rated it really liked it

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Feb 21, 2012 Marleen rated it really liked it · review of another edition

1222 metres above sea level the train travelling from Oslo to Bergen derails during the start of the worst snow storm in Norwegian history. With the snow and freezing temperatures getting steadily worse, the 269 passengers have no hope of a quick rescue and no choice but to take refuge in centuries old mountain hotel close to the crash site.
The hotel has withstood anything nature could throw at it for hundreds of years and is well stocked so the passengers should be safe from the elements and in 1222 metres above sea level the train travelling from Oslo to Bergen derails during the start of the worst snow storm in Norwegian history. With the snow and freezing temperatures getting steadily worse, the 269 passengers have no hope of a quick rescue and no choice but to take refuge in centuries old mountain hotel close to the crash site.
The hotel has withstood anything nature could throw at it for hundreds of years and is well stocked so the passengers should be safe from the elements and in no risk of food or water shortages. The safe-haven feels less save after the first night in the hotel though when one of the passengers is found just outside the hotel, murdered.
Among the passengers is former police inspector Hanne Wilhelmsen. Retired from the police force since she ended up with a bullet lodged in her spine during her last case which left her paralysed from the waist down, Hanne has been leading an almost reclusive life. And when she’s asked to use the knowledge and training from her old career to investigate the murder she is very reluctant.
But with tension growing among the passengers, the storm outside showing no sign of lessening and no where to hide from the people around her, Hanne soon finds she’s looking into what exactly is going on around her, almost despite herself.
And the murder is only one of the mysteries Hanne is faced with. What exactly was the reason for the extra carriage added on to the train, why was it so heavily guarded and who exactly are the people hiding on the top floor of the hotel?
There are more then enough unanswered questions to keep Hanne occupied and very frustrated, because there’s always a chance that the murderer will strike again.

This was a very nice modern day variation on the traditional manor house mysteries. Locked in the hotel with nobody being able to come or go, the murderer has to be one of the people there. For any readers not immediately recognising the classical set-up of the story there is a nice reference to “little grey cells” towards the end of the book, and the solution to the mystery is revealed during a group meeting with Hanne taking the role of the story-book detective taking their time to target various suspects before revealing the actual murderer and the reasons behind the crime. There is some of the conceit we often find in the classical mysteries here as well; the reader is not given all the clues the story detective has access to. In this book that is due to Hanne being easily distracted and a little hard of hearing. But whereas Hanne is able to remember what she thought she had forgotten or missed, the reader doesn’t have that benefit.
While I enjoyed the mystery and the setting, I wasn’t as charmed by the main character. For me Hanne was a bit too anti-social and selfish as well as inconsistent. Her need to be alone and uninvolved didn’t quite fit with the interest she took in some of her fellow passengers and her constant observing and (internal) questioning of those around her and their motives.
However, I did find this a quick read and once I started the book I found that I needed to keep on turning the pages in order to find out what exactly was going on. The issues that caused me minor irritations at times weren’t big enough to stop me racing towards the revelations at the end of the story.
...more

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Aug 21, 2012 Ti rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: books-sent-to-me

The Short of It:

A mystery that will hold you captive. Preferably, under a blanket with a cup of something warm to keep you company.

The Rest of It:

During what is quite possibly the worst snowstorm ever, a train on its way to Bergen, Norway derails at a point about 1222 meters above sea level. The passengers are taken to a nearby hotel where they are given food and shelter but they find themselves trapped as the weather continues to worsen.

One of the passengers, Hanne Wilhelmsen, a retired pol The Short of It:

A mystery that will hold you captive. Preferably, under a blanket with a cup of something warm to keep you company.

The Rest of It:

During what is quite possibly the worst snowstorm ever, a train on its way to Bergen, Norway derails at a point about 1222 meters above sea level. The passengers are taken to a nearby hotel where they are given food and shelter but they find themselves trapped as the weather continues to worsen.

One of the passengers, Hanne Wilhelmsen, a retired police investigator notices something odd. That the passenger/s from the private rail car are nowhere to be seen. She hears from the other guests that they were taken to a different section of the hotel. Who are they? Why are they being kept separate from the other guests?

As if things could get any worse, a body is discovered. First one, then two. Since Hanne is the only person with any kind of investigative experience, she is enlisted to help solve the crime even though she has no desire to do so. Years ago she was paralyzed from the waist down by a bullet to the spine making it somewhat difficult to get around but her observation skills if anything improved, making her the perfect storyteller for this “locked door” mystery.

This is the 8th book in the Wilhelmsen series but the first for me and I never felt lost or out of the loop. Holt manages to give you just enough of a back story to feel comfortable,without rehashing Hanne’s entire life. The pacing is pretty good too considering its limited setting. The personal observations of Hanne were both critical as well as entertaining and often times funny.

This was an enjoyable read. I don’t read mystery or crime fiction too often but this one was especially fun. Mainly because of the “locked door” nature of the story. Being trapped in a hotel with a bunch of strangers, stuck in a wheelchair with a killer running about, makes for good reading. I can’t deny it.

I take comfort in knowing that there are seven other books in the series for me to dip into. Also, my other love (Jo Nesbo) calls Holt the “godmother of modern Norwegian crime fiction.” I’d say that’s pretty impressive.

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Oct 16, 2017 Emma McCaul rated it really liked it

Shelves: book-reviews-emma-mccaul

This book has a fantastic premise and the first third is thrilling and engrossing. I was turning the pages in expectation of the suspense to continue to build.

Unfortunately, nearing the end, the suspense didn’t match my expectations. I had reached the final third of the book without any real suspects in mind. The two clues given regarding the murderer were quite vague and when the murderer’s identity is revealed, the pieces come together with information that is kept hidden to the reader until t ...more

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Jun 12, 2013 Jeanette rated it it was amazing

Superb closed location who-dun-it. The blizzard, the isolation- all mount to a setting of tension in which that alone is an excellent characterization. It is alive and menaces.

Hanne, is in her REAL coming of age. And not just in her self-identity habit/issue of self-obscuring, either. She also has finally caved into the realization for her amazing leadership potential. Hanne is at the peak of great change. After a forced turning from her life's treasured interior habits, the full onus is put on ...more

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Aug 03, 2017 Kivrin Engle rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I really love Holt’s Hanne Wilhelmsen series. 1222 is different than the other books in that the story is told by Hanne, in 1st person narrative, rather than 3rd. It also is the 8th book in the series, so if you like your series in order, as I do, you would not read this as a stand-alone without having begun at the beginning. Certainly, you can do this, but knowing Hanne’s extensive history is fairly important to understanding who she is now. Nonetheless, 1222 will work on its own. It’s a great ...more

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Dec 05, 2010 Karen rated it liked it

Shelves: review-books, crime, scandinavian

Take one gloriously grumpy central protagonist, add that train crash, include a massive snowstorm cutting off a train full of people 1222 metres above sea level in an inaccessible hotel, add a mysterious locked carriage and a group of shadowy unknown passengers, then kill off a high-profile passenger and see what happens.

What happens is that our grumpy protagonist, Hanne Wilhemlsen, ex-police officer, in a wheelchair as a result of being shot on duty, has to work out what is going on before the Take one gloriously grumpy central protagonist, add that train crash, include a massive snowstorm cutting off a train full of people 1222 metres above sea level in an inaccessible hotel, add a mysterious locked carriage and a group of shadowy unknown passengers, then kill off a high-profile passenger and see what happens.

What happens is that our grumpy protagonist, Hanne Wilhemlsen, ex-police officer, in a wheelchair as a result of being shot on duty, has to work out what is going on before the body count continues to increase. With no official help from the outside, and way too much interfering help on the inside, Hanne and a small group of trusted people - some passengers, some staff, some locals, need to work out who wanted to kill off a seemingly harmless, albeit annoying, priest. And the killing doesn't stop there.

Of course this plot has more than a hat-tip to a few perennial favourite devices - a closed room setting, albeit a biggish closed room in this example. This is a very large, rather luxurious resort, capable of taking in 269 or so people at a moment's notice. Then there's the idea of the thinking, observational detective - in this case enforced because of physical restrictions, there's something vaguely reminiscent of Nero Wolfe or Hercule Poriot about Hanne, although her Archie / Hastings is embodied in more than one person in 1222.

There is a large potential cast of passengers, staff and local helpers so it's just possible that the concept of a resort (that's further divided after a particular storm event) could be what makes the action being centred around a very small group of people feasible. Despite this, there was more than one point where I did wonder where everybody else was hiding - 269 plus people not being a small number after all. Add to that the secretive sub-thread about the mysterious closed off carriage, and you couldn't help wondering what was going on behind closed doors, besides the murder plotting of course!

That secretive sub-thread is probably the only part of the book that simply flat-out, doesn't work. This reader had to assume that perhaps the closed carriage was there as a bit of a hap-tip to the classic red-herring (being another perennial favourite), but to be honest, it didn't work as a red-herring throughout the book and the resolution... well it was just pointless.

Ignoring that bit of off-kilter action, the rest of the book was really good. I really like Hanne (and not just because I like grumpy protagonists!), and the use of the setting to provide a closed off, claustrophobic environment along with a sense of potential threat worked. There was a good cast of supporting characters, some nice touches of humour and good pace, and for readers who like to work out the whodonnit aspects, the author has played pretty fair - you've got a good chance of sorting it out, although you will be waiting until the last minute to get your deductions confirmed.

After a bit of a look around it seems that, in that delightful habit publishers have designed to drive readers mildly bats, 1222 is the eighth Hanne Wilhelmsen novel, but the first to be translated into English. Hopefully we'll get the rest of the series "toots sweet". In the right order would be greatly appreciated.
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Jan 26, 2012 Maddy rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2012-reads

PROTAGONIST: Hanne Wilhelmsen, retired police inspector
SETTING: Northern Norway
SERIES: # 8 of 8 (first translated into English)
RATING: 4.0

A train on its way from Oslo to Bergen, Norway, derails in a remote northern region during a horrific storm. Amazingly, only one person, the driver, is killed. The remaining 268 passengers are transported by local rescue teams to an old tourist hotel, Finse 1222, so named because it is 1222 meters above sea level. The stranded passengers stay in one of the hot PROTAGONIST: Hanne Wilhelmsen, retired police inspector
SETTING: Northern Norway
SERIES: # 8 of 8 (first translated into English)
RATING: 4.0

A train on its way from Oslo to Bergen, Norway, derails in a remote northern region during a horrific storm. Amazingly, only one person, the driver, is killed. The remaining 268 passengers are transported by local rescue teams to an old tourist hotel, Finse 1222, so named because it is 1222 meters above sea level. The stranded passengers stay in one of the hotel’s two buildings. The storm rages and becomes so fierce that even the most experienced local guide is unable to go outside, and all rescue attempts have been thwarted.

At first, the situation is an inconvenience to the travelers; but it soon turns dangerous as several of them are murdered. In the group is a retired detective inspector, Hanne Wilhelmsen, who gave up her career several years earlier after being shot in the spine. Confined to a wheelchair, she wants nothing more than to be left alone. But the situation begs for her intervention. She bands together with a few of the local men and the owner of the hotel to stop the killings and find the perpetrator. Another mystery involves a group of people, including armed guards, who were on the last car of the train. They were spirited off separately, and there are many theories about who they are—members of the royalty, terrorists, escaped prisoners, and so on.

1222 is a classic locked room mystery, albeit with a great many more suspects than is usually the case. It was fascinating to see the impact of the isolation on the group. It was equally interesting to see Hanne shed her aloneness and become involved with people other than her immediate family for the first time in years. The secondary characters in the “inner group” were also quite intriguing.

I thoroughly enjoyed the book until its conclusion. It felt to me like Holt just wanted to end the story. The reader was not privy to all the details that led Hanne to identify the killer. In addition, the red herring suspects were dealt with quite summarily. It was disappointing to have what was an excellent read conclude so unsatisfactorily.

That being said, I look forward to the translations of Holt’s other works becoming available in the US. Holt has been very well received here, as evidenced by the recent nomination of 1222 for the Edgar Award for Best Novel, winner to be announced in May of 2012.

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Oct 01, 2014 W. Tinkanesh rated it it was amazing

Hanne Wilhelmsen was travelling from Oslo to Bergen when train 601 crashed. Among the 269 passengers there are eight doctors from various fields including Magnus Streng. There are several priests including Cato Hammer who will be murdered during the first night in the snowed-in hotel where they have been welcomed until the end of the storm.

Hanne is a retired police investigator. From her wheelchair she watches people, asks questions, tries to solve the murder and wonders who was in the sealed tr ...more

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Aug 17, 2012 Jennifer rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery, 2012

I love a good locked room mystery and this book has a great premise - 269 passengers from a derailed train are forced to seek shelter in a snowbound hotel in Norway during a blizzard of biblical proportions. I loved the descriptions of the storm, the use of the Beaufort scale at the start of each chapter, and the claustrophobic feeling of the snow piling higher than the windows as the tension mounts inside.

Fortunately for these folks, retired investigator Hanne Wilhelmsen is one of the passenger ...more

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May 08, 2012 Jeannie and Louis Rigod rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I had never read a book by this fine author until "1222." I will continue to read her work, when it is available in English, in the future.

This was a gripping tale of a former disabled Norwegian police officer. Hanne Wilhelmsen was shot on duty and is now paralyzed below the waist. On her way to a medical appointment in the dead of winter, her train derails. Not only is Hanne injured, quite dramatically, to my opinion, she is pressed back into 'service' when a murder occurs within the first twel ...more

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Jan 02, 2016 Giulio rated it really liked it

Shelves: thriller

More than a 100 survivors of a train wreckage are stuck in a Norwegian hotel during one of the worst winter storms of the century. A murder occurs. A misanthropic / paralysed / lesbian ex-cop has only 48 hours to solve the mystery .. it's like And Then There Were None with a Scandinavian atmosphere. Highly recommended for all the Northern European thriller lovers!

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About Anne Holt

Anne Holt

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Anne Holt was born in Larvik, grew up in Lillestrøm and Tromsø, and moved to Oslo in 1978. She graduated with a law degree from the University of Bergen in 1986, and went on to work for The Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK) and then the Oslo Police Department, earning her right to practice as a lawyer in Norway. In 1990 she returned to NRK, where she worked one year as a journalist and anch ...more