Asle Skredderberget:

A Heaven of Pain

With Milo Cavalli, the investigator with an Italian fortune and Nordic
values
The character
Milo Cavalli. Half Norwegian, half Italian. Successful financial analyst turned policeman,
working for The Norwegian National Authority for Investigation and Prosecution of
Economic and Environmental Crime (KOKRIM).

With a family fortune based in Italy and a set of values rooted in his upbringing in the
social democratic Norway he has both the means and the integrity to go that extra mile,
whether confronted with the mafia in Oslo or corporate villains on Wall Street.

Behind the successful exterior of a penthouse apartment in Oslo, family mansions in

Italy and beautiful girlfriends, he is struggling to understand his mothers suicide and to
come to terms with his fathers inability to prevent it.

Being a catholic makes him something of an outsider in the non-religious and modern
Norway, but by going to confession in his local church he is able to sort out both
personal and work related issues - sometimes to the bewilderment and frustration of his
confessor.
The plot
A Heaven of Pain tells the story of the killings of a brother and a sister. A young
schoolboy is shot in the back by gang members in Oslo, in what seems like an outright
execution. Two years later his older sister, a respected scientist in a global
pharmaceutical company, is found drugged and strangled in a hotel room in Rome.

Milo Cavalli is sent by Norwegian police to deal with Italian bureaucracy and investigate
the murder in Rome. He soon gets entangled in a case that takes him from the dark side
of Oslo and its gangs rivaling for control over drugs and steroids and all the way to the
world of high finance on Wall Street.
While the story unfolds he is also confronted with secrets within his own family.

A Heaven of Pain has the killing of the pharmaceutical scientist as its main plot. The two
sub plots are the murder of the young boy two years earlier and a hidden secret in the
Cavalli family linked to an accident 30 years ago, which greatly affected the life of Milos
mother. And, as it turns out, can be linked to her suicide a few years ago.

A key question for Milo and his colleagues and the reader is whether there is a direct
link between the two murders. While the shooting of the young boy is related to the
illegal market for drugs and steroids produced by the big pharmaceutical corporations,
the murder of the pharmaceutical scientist is linked to her employers hunt for profits.
The story unveils an industry where social responsibility is sacrificed by corporate
executives in order to maximize their income. Mr Skredderberget has used real life
examples from defectors in the pharmaceutical industry to show manipulated
research and how testing of new drugs in some cases have had a devastating effect on
people participating in tests, so called guinea pigs.

The author
Mr Skredderberget holds a Masters degree in Business and Finance from the Norwegian
School of Economics in Bergen and the prestigious Universit Bocconi in Milan.
He has worked as a business journalist in the leading newspapers and tv-channels in
Norway, before pursuing a career as a corporate executive. For several years he held a
position as Vice President Corporate Communications in one of the worlds leading
chemical companies, working on projects in Europe, the US, Asia, Latin-America and
Africa.

Skredderberget draws on both his journalistic and corporate experience in his writing.
His debut crime novel, Soft as Metal about the weapons industry and financial industry,
was shortlisted to the prestigious Riverton Award as Norways best crime novel in 2010.

He is now an independent advisor and writer, and his production include both crime
novels and non-fiction. He lives in Oslo, with his wife and two kids.