Karin Fossum is the bestselling Norwegian writer named the Queen of Nordic Crime. Justly deserved. Her Inspector Sejer novels began in 1995, and the second won the Glass Key Award.
Konrad Sejer is straightforward, compassionate, and fair - quietly driven to find the correct results. A widower who lives with his beloved dog Kollberg, he often works with a young officer Inspector Jacob Skarre.
Although the 'first' Sejer novel written, his appearances bookend the story, which unravels on it's own rather than through police procedure.
Eva Magnus and her young daughter Emma are walking by the city river when they see a drowned man float by. Rather than phone the police, she checks in with her dad and heads home. We flashback to when Eva runs into an old friend, Maja. Penniless and almost homeless, Eva sees Maja lives very well and learns how she can become her own boss, making up to 2 million kroner in no time, a sum Maja is ready to retire on. Eva is intrigued and agrees, but the next day she witnesses Maja being murdered. The nest egg is now hers - no one else knows of it - but there is something else. Her impatience with the police to bring the killer to justice. Eva knows just how to set the trap, and who should be made to pay.
More than a crime novel, Fossum's writing pulls you right in. Compelling and sharp - all the characters, no matter how small a role are so honestly drawn - her attention to detail and the idiosyncrasies people have is spot on. These are psychological novels, as the characters open up or shut down after a traumatic event. Inspector Sejer has a smaller part, it's really all Eva's story. Involving, thrilling, one of the best I have read in a long time. Couldn't put it down and read it through in about a day. Very happy to have started reading Fossum.
Her second novel Don't Look Back was the first to be published in English, and is often called the start of the series.
In The Darkness was the fourth to be 'translated', and a 2013 hardcover has come out titled Eva's Eye, which looks to be a new novel, but is this same novel in an American edition. Confusing, but I always like to start at the beginning, as the writer introduced the characters. Reading them in succession, you get the added thrill of inside jokes or comments that might have gone over your head.
Recommendable in every way.
My other reviews for Karin Fossum:
The Whisperer (Inspector Sejer #13)
The Drowned Boy (Inspector Sejer #11)
The Caller (Inspector Sejer #10)
Bad Intentions (Inspector Sejer #9)
The Water's Edge (Inspector Sejer #8)
The Murder of Harriet Krohn (Inspector Sejer #7)
Black Seconds (Inspector Sejer #6)
The Indian Bride (Inspector Sejer #5)
When The Devil Holds The Candle (Inspector Sejer #4)
He Who Fears The Wolf (Inspector Sejer #3)
Don't Look Back (Inspector Sejer #2)
1995 / Tradeback / 392 pages
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