Blood Ties

Roy Opgard, the narrator, owns a gas station in Os, a remote Norwegian mountain village of about a thousand people. The village's economy depends on tourism, a five-star hotel called Os Spa, and a nearby campsite. Roy's younger brother Carl is the charismatic CEO of Os Spa, widely regarded as the "king of Os." The brothers share a dark bond: Together they have killed seven people and a dog, and Roy has spent his adult life covering up Carl's messes.

The novel opens with Roy visiting geologist Bent Halden at his Oslo home, posing as a mechanic returning a forgotten car part. Once inside, Roy offers Halden and his business partner Jon Fuhr twelve million kroner to falsify a report from their geological survey firm, GeoData, stating that the planned Todde tunnel cannot be built. If the tunnel proceeds, the main road will bypass Os, devastating property values. Roy exploits Halden's financial vulnerabilities and leaves him time to decide.

Driving home, Roy discusses the bribe with Carl at Opgard, their family farmhouse. Carl reports that the Highways Department will install a crash barrier at Geitesvingen, a dangerous hairpin bend near their property, and will winch up wrecked cars from Huk, the deep ravine below. This alarms Roy. In extended flashbacks, he reveals the brothers' violent history. When Roy was almost eighteen, he sabotaged the brakes on their father's Cadillac to stop the father's abuse of Carl, killing both parents when the car plunged over Geitesvingen. When Sheriff Sigmund Olsen investigated, Carl pushed him into Huk; Roy disposed of the body using Fritz Industrial Cleaner, a powerful corrosive, and staged a drowning. Later, Roy killed local used-car dealer Willum Willumsen and a hit man who threatened the brothers. Most painfully, Roy had a secret affair with Shannon Alleyne, Carl's wife and a Barbadian architect who designed Os Spa. Shannon became pregnant with Roy's child. But Carl discovered the pregnancy, beat Shannon to death, and called Roy for help. Roy staged her death as a car accident at Geitesvingen, losing the woman he loved and their unborn child.

Roy's plan to save Os centers on building a massive wooden roller coaster at a campsite he intends to buy from Rita Willumsen, widow of the man Roy killed. He negotiates the purchase while approaching bank manager Asle Vendelbo about a hundred-million-kroner loan. Sheriff Kurt Olsen, son of the sheriff Carl killed, has spent years trying to prove the brothers are murderers. Kurt, who is involved with Rita, threatens Roy at a party, warning he will pursue them relentlessly.

At Os Spa, Roy encounters Natalie Moe, the roofer's daughter. Years earlier, Roy recognized that Natalie's father was abusing her. When the sheriff refused to act, Roy beat Anton Moe and issued an ultimatum: send Natalie away or die. Natalie has returned as a confident young woman working as the hotel's head of marketing. Carl suggests involving her in the amusement park project, and Natalie impresses Roy, arguing the roller coaster must be billed as the biggest in the world to succeed.

Roy meets Halden and Fuhr in Notodden to finalize the bribe. He discovers Fuhr is secretly recording, punches him, destroys the recording, pays a cash advance, and secretly films Fuhr accepting the money as leverage. The GeoData report is soon leaked: The tunnel is declared not feasible, and the main road will remain through Os.

Roy and Natalie grow closer. They hike in the mountains, attend a folk music concert, and begin a passionate relationship. Roy confesses that his father was an abuser, attributing the victimhood to himself to protect Carl's secret, and later admits he killed his parents. Natalie accepts this, and they plan a trip to Krakow.

KRIPOS, the Norwegian criminal investigation service, finds the former sheriff's blood behind the license plate of the parents' wrecked Cadillac, and Kurt arrests Roy publicly at the hotel. Roy arranges a false alibi that provides an innocent explanation for the blood evidence, and KRIPOS accepts it. He secures his amusement park loan by blackmailing Vendelbo with evidence that the bank manager used below-market loans to pursue a young deputy romantically. Carl pressures Roy to divert part of the loan to cover Os Spa's expansion costs.

Before the Krakow trip, Natalie attends an Os Spa staff party and vanishes. She calls the next morning to end the relationship. Roy discovers she was taken unconscious to her father's house and hears her buy a morning-after pill. Believing Moe raped his daughter again, Roy drives to the farm in a rage, beats Moe to death with a bicycle chain, and stages the killing as an accident.

Roy then uncovers the truth. Carl admits he had sex with Natalie at the party, claiming they were both drunk. Roy sends a blood sample from the Bridal Suite sheets to a KRIPOS contact and confirms it contains Rohypnol but no alcohol. Carl drugged and raped Natalie deliberately. Roy identifies the pills as Rohypnol Carl obtained years earlier. Roy killed an innocent man.

Overwhelmed by guilt, Roy rows onto a remote lake and overdoses on tramadol and Rohypnol. Natalie tracks him down, forces him to vomit with ipecac, and drives him to the hospital, saving his life.

Roy travels to Paris, where he buys the French hotel group Alpin's fifteen percent stake in Os Spa, giving him fifty-one percent and majority control. He confronts Carl, telling him he will be dismissed as CEO. Carl retaliates by revealing he has testified to Kurt about Roy's murders, having learned from DNA analysis that Shannon's child was Roy's. Carl admits he drugged and raped Natalie as deliberate revenge for Roy's affair with Shannon.

Natalie files a rape complaint, but Kurt, protecting his key witness, tells her there is insufficient evidence. When Kurt tells Natalie he suspects her father was beaten to death, she confronts Roy; his inability to deny it confirms her suspicion, and she says she never wants to see him again.

Roy neutralizes Kurt by revealing he possesses a signed statement from Erik Nerell, Kurt's friend, proving Kurt fabricated a rival bid during the campsite sale. Roy had earlier recognized Nerell's distinctive handwriting on the fake offer. Trapped by evidence of his own fraud, Kurt agrees to mutual silence.

That night, Carl corners Roy in the Opgard barn with a shotgun, planning to kill him, stage it as suicide, and inherit the majority shares. He forces the barrels into Roy's mouth. A gunshot rings out, but not from the shotgun: Natalie has returned to Opgard after realizing that Roy killed her father out of a mistaken belief that Moe had raped her, and recognizing the same capacity for violence in herself. From the porch, she shoots Carl in the back with the Remington rifle. Carl, mortally wounded, asks Roy to end his suffering. Roy cuts his brother's throat with their father's hunting knife, fulfilling the same role he played as a boy when Carl accidentally shot the family dog and could not finish the kill.

Roy and Natalie stage Carl's death as a suicide, dissolving the body in Fritz Industrial Cleaner, driving his car to a rest area, and planting a fake suicide note. Kurt discovers the car; both men understand Carl's silence protects them equally.

By spring, Carl has been legally declared dead. Roy inherits his estate, takes full control of Os Spa, and begins constructing the amusement park. He and Natalie are engaged. Standing in the Palace, the grand house Carl built but never inhabited, Roy offers it to Natalie as their home. Together they look out over the village where Roy has lost and won everything, watching an avalanche of fresh snow sweep silently across the frozen lake below.