Jonas Wergeland, a successful TV documentary producer with a touch of God s gift to women, returns one evening from the World s Fair in Seville to find his wife dead on the living room floor. What follows is a quest to find the killer, encompassing by turns a picaresque and endlessly inventive look at the conditions that have brought Wergeland to this critical juncture in life. From his hair s breadth escape from a ravenous polar bear while filming in Greenland to a near-death experience aboard a passenger ferry in the icy Baltic, the Tom Jones-like experiences that comprise the narrative of Wergeland s life, relayed in Kjaerstad s veneered and acutely observant prose, provide a fascinating portrait of a media icon at the crux of his journey as an artist.