When the Devil Holds the Candle (Inspector Sejer Mysteries) | Karin Fossum

When the Devil Holds the Candle (Inspector Sejer Mysteries) | Karin Fossum | A meditation on passive evil...

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When the Devil Hol...

	When the Devil Holds the Candle (Inspector Sejer Mysteries) Karin Fossum Harvest Books, 2007 - 272 pages average customer review:based on 15 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

When two teenagers steal a purse from a stroller, it results in an infant?s death. Unaware of the enormity of their crime, Zipp and Andreas are intent on committing another. They follow an elderly woman home, and Andreas enters her house with his switchblade. In the dark, Zipp waits for his friend to come out.

Inspector Konrad Sejer and his colleague Jacob Skarre see no connection between the infant?s death and the reported disappearance of a local delinquent. And so while the confusion outside mounts, the heart-stopping truth unfolds inside the old woman?s home.

Unflappable as ever, Sejer digs below the surface of small- town tranquility in an effort to understand how and why violence destroys everyday lives.

(05/15/2006)

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A good psychological thriller

Andreas's disappearance is a mystery to all, especially to his inseparable friend Zipp. But as much as inspector Sejer and his colleagues question him, it isn't easy for Zipp to come forward with details of the last time he saw his friend. They had been following an old woman, Irma Funder, an easy target for some quick cash, and Andreas, brandishing a knife, boldly followed her into her house. The next moment he was gone. Zipp had anxiously waited for his friend but Andreas was never to reappear...
A good thriller in which the author tackles the reasons people commit crimes with devastating effect.
The novel is read by David Rintoul for BBC Audiobooks. A commendable performance.

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A meditation on passive evil...

There are two new fronts in European mystery writing: the well-named Tartan Noire coming out of Scotland, which is represented by a whole cadre of young, new, irreverent talent; and an as-yet-named current of excellent police procedurals coming out of Scandinavia. The great Swedish writer, Henning Mankell, started the flow for me, followed by the excellent debut novel by Icelander Arnaldur Indridason entitled Jar City. Amazon.com helpfully suggested that if I like these two, I might like Karin Fossum, and, so I tried her (don't you love that helpful old Amazon?). As with Mankell, it took me a book or two to get into the rhythm, but I think Fossum's third book, When the Devil Holds the Candle, is superb. It was the winner of the Gumshoe Award for Best European Mystery in 2007.

This is a fresh approach to police procedurals where we actually know the facts of the crimes quite early in the book. The journey we take is in discovering the twists of history and fate that put the main characters into a collision course with each other. It is also an incisive commentary on the narrow boundaries between idle youth/criminal behavior, and isolation/insanity. Irma is a strange and solitary older lady like anyone we might see and ignore on our city streets. She is beneath notice. But she harbors powerful and disturbing insights. Andreas and Zipp are, respectively, formless and gormless youth, but they are capable of far-reaching damage due to their short-focus selfishness. These three end up in a desperate synergy that moves like a runaway train and takes strangers, friends, family, and the police along with them. And Fossum continues to develop Inspector Sejer and his colleagues and family in ways that benefit the story without competing with the action. I look forward to the next installment.

P.S. Notice should be given to the excellent work of the translator, Felicity David.

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Great author

Characters that are real, not forced or overdrawn. Plot development that is believable and deceiving, with a style that smoothly involves the reader mentally, laying clues that may be clues or not, always with unexpected plot finishes that are satisfying. Read one of her books and you immediately want to start another. A detective mystery writer of the highest order.
I would recommend starting with The Indian Bride, then He Who Fears the Wolf, then Don't Look Back and then When The Devil Holds the Candle. The Indian Bride would make a great book-club discussion novel. If you like anything in this genre you will love this author.

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Wow! what a scary story!

This is the 3rd or 4th book that I've read by Karin Fossum and I was truly creeped out by this one. Being of Norwegian decent, I love that a Norwegian woman wrote this. I guess that I shouldn't be surprised, but I didn't know she was out there and I love it! Read it if you love suspense and mysery.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3

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