The Third Realm

A new star appears in the sky, and all is not right with the world. This installment of a multivolume novel, which follows The Morning Star (2021) and The Wolves of Eternity (2023), revisits characters whom readers have met before. Each chapter’s title names a narrator whose psyche and life unfold. Tove, a painter, struggles with mental health problems made worse by the star’s appearance. Her husband and three children bear the brunt of her descent into despair and destruction. Other characters include a philandering police detective investigating the gruesome murder of three members of a metal rock band; an undertaker who, with several doctors and scientists, discovers that no one in the country is dying once the star appears; and a woman pastor whose husband suspects her of infidelity. Evocative images of Norway’s fjords, climate, sky, and terrain accentuate the atmosphere of doom and tension.