The Kingdom

Roy Opgard, a quiet service station manager in his mid-thirties, lives alone on a remote mountain farm in the Norwegian village of Os. His parents died years earlier when their Cadillac DeVille went over Geitesvingen, a sharp bend on the mountain road, and plunged into Huken, a deep ravine. Roy has not seen his younger brother Carl in 15 years. When Carl returns from Canada with his wife, Shannon Alleyne Opgard, a red-haired architect from Barbados, Roy is wary but glad. Carl reveals the reason for his homecoming: He intends to build a spa hotel on Opgard land, financed through a shared liability company in which villagers pledge property rather than cash. The plan hinges on winning endorsement from Jo Aas, the village's revered former council chairman, and on selling the Opgard wilderness land for 20 million kroner, enough for Roy to finally buy his own station.

Roy is skeptical but tempted. At a packed investors' meeting, Carl delivers a charismatic speech, but when a questioner demands the price of the Opgard land, Carl improvises and announces that he and Roy are donating it for free. Roy is furious at the betrayal of their agreement, but Carl argues the real profits will come from cabin developments around the hotel. The village council approves the project with only one dissenting vote.

Beneath these events, Roy carries enormous secrets. The novel reveals through flashback that their father sexually abused Carl throughout childhood. Roy heard the assaults through the stovepipe that carried sound between floors but was paralyzed by shame and fear. At 17, Roy confronted his father, who beat him and said the only way to stop a father was to kill him. Roy planned methodically, sabotaging the Cadillac's brakes and steering column. He watched his parents drive toward Geitesvingen and vanish over the edge. Carl understood what Roy had done but never asked directly, and the brothers maintained a silent pact.

Two years later, Sheriff Sigmund Olsen took Roy fishing and pressed him about Carl's injuries, suspecting Roy of sexually abusing his younger brother. That evening, Sigmund drove to Opgard and confronted Carl, who called Roy in a panic, saying Sigmund had fallen into Huken. Roy found Sigmund dead in the ravine and orchestrated a cover-up: He scalped the body to fashion a disguise, drove Sigmund's car through the village to his lakeside cabin, and staged a fake suicide. He then dissolved the remains in undiluted Fritz heavy-duty industrial cleaner at the family workshop.

In the present, Sheriff Kurt Olsen, Sigmund's son, has inherited his father's suspicion of the Opgards. Kurt plans to send climbers into Huken to search for his father's mobile phone, whose base station signals place it near the farm the night Sigmund disappeared. Roy realizes he left the phone behind during the cover-up. He descends into Huken while Shannon serves as lookout and retrieves the phone just before Kurt's team arrives. Roy and Carl plant it in a fishing net near Sigmund's cabin, making it appear the device had been submerged for 16 years. Kurt accepts the evidence and allows construction to proceed.

Roy's feelings for Shannon deepen. She reveals her background as a "redleg," a lower-class white Barbadian descended from transported Irish and Scottish convicts, lifted from poverty by her grandmother's sacrifices. Roy recognizes in Shannon someone who, like him, places family loyalty above conventional morality. He also confronts Anton Moe, a local roofer he suspects of sexually abusing his teenage daughter, recognizing the pattern from his own family's history.

Realizing he is falling in love with his brother's wife, Roy transfers to a station in Kristiansand in southern Norway. Months later, Shannon sends a text asking about hotels in Notodden. Roy drives there and finds her at the Brattrein Hotel. They spend the night together. In the morning, Roy sees bruises on Shannon's body that reveal Carl has been beating her, confirming his fear that Carl has inherited their father's capacity for violence.

Roy hears nothing from Shannon for months. At Christmas he visits Os and notices summer-tire tracks in the snow outside Opgard, evidence of visits from a Danish enforcer. Shannon warns Roy to leave while there is still time. On New Year's Eve, the hotel burns down. Roy learns that Grete Smitt, the village hairdresser, told Shannon about Carl's affair with his ex-girlfriend Mari Aas. Roy understands that Shannon's trip to Notodden was partly motivated by revenge.

In early February, through the stovepipe hole, Roy overhears a Danish enforcer named Poul Hansen threaten Carl: if Carl does not repay his secret loan from Willum Willumsen, a local used-car dealer, within 48 hours, Shannon will be killed, then Carl. Roy pours water over the icy road at Geitesvingen. Hansen's Jaguar, on summer tires, loses grip and plunges into Huken.

Roy forces Willumsen to sign documents canceling Carl's debt by threatening Willumsen's wife, Rita. When Willumsen refuses further cooperation, Roy shoots him with Hansen's pistol, staging the killing as a suicide. KRIPOS, Norway's national criminal investigation service, investigates. Gunshot residue on Hansen's body confirms he fired the weapon, and KRIPOS concludes Hansen killed Willumsen before dying in a driving accident.

Shannon reveals she is pregnant with Roy's child and that Carl forged Roy's signature to claim sole ownership of all Opgard land, using it as security for the Willumsen loan. She discloses that Carl threatened a business partner at gunpoint in Toronto to silence him about investor losses, and that the Os hotel recycles designs from a failed project in Canmore, Canada.

Roy and Shannon devise a plan: Roy will sabotage the Cadillac again, replacing working brake hoses and the throttle cable with defective parts, so that when Carl drives to the hotel relaunch, the car will fail at Geitesvingen.

Roy installs the defective parts, but the plan unravels. Stanley Spind, the village doctor, has inadvertently told Carl that Shannon is pregnant, and Carl knows he cannot be the father. Carl confronts Shannon, who confesses she set fire to the hotel herself because she could not bear to see her architectural design compromised. In a rage, Carl strikes her with a clothes iron, then a stone, killing her.

Carl calls Roy for help. Roy nearly kills Carl with the same stone but stops when he sees his brother's helpless, childlike expression. Instead, they place Shannon's body in the Cadillac, smear her blood on the steering wheel, and let the car roll off Geitesvingen into Huken. The defective parts Roy installed to kill Carl now explain Shannon's death as an accident.

Carl delivers a triumphant speech at the hotel relaunch, announcing both the rebuilt project and Shannon's pregnancy. Roy vomits behind the building. KRIPOS investigates and concludes the death resulted from vehicle malfunction. Kurt insists it was murder but is overruled.

Alone at the farm, Roy lies on the double bed inhaling the last traces of Shannon's scent. He finds crocheted baby shoes in the wardrobe. From the kitchen window, he watches Kurt examining the barn and a bullet-holed zinc bucket, evidence that Kurt will never stop investigating. Carl tells Roy he will return before the year is out. A spring avalanche crashes into Lake Budal, and Roy reflects that once things begin to crack, everything goes quickly.