DP54Cover - Deadly Pleasures

ead before you die (everyone seems to be making “before
you die” bucket lists nowadays, so I’m going to jump right
in and do the same).
NORWAY
Population: 4,627,000
(approx. population of Colorado,
22 nd largest state)
Area: 125,181 square miles
(slightly larger than New Mexico)
Capital: Oslo
K.O. Dahl
Series Characters: Oslo Police detectives
Gunnarstranda and Frolich
� THE FOURTH MAN (St. Martin’s Minotaur,
$23.95, 2008; Faber, £10.99, 2007). In the course of a
routine police raid Detective Inspector Frank Frolich of the
Oslo Police saves Elizabeth Faremo from getting inadvertently
caught in crossfire. By the time he learns that she is
the sister of Jonny Faremo, wanted member of a larceny
gang, it is already too late -- he is obsessed. Suspected,
suspended and blindly in love, Frolich must find out if he is
being used before his life unravels beyond repair.
� THE MAN IN THE WINDOW (Faber, £6.99,
May, 2008). It is Friday the thirteenth, and with the
Norwegian capital enveloped in freezing cold, seventynine-year-old
Reidar Folke Jesperson passes what will be
the last day of his life. In the early hours of the following
morning he is found stabbed to death in his shop, his naked
body exposed in the shop’s window, a red string tied round
his neck, and three crosses and a number - 195 - written
across his chest. Police officers Gunnarstranda and Frolich
- the team who were so deeply embroiled in the search for
The Fourth Man — are called to the scene.
Deadly Pleasures
Karin Fossum
Series Character: Inspector Sejer
� DON’T LOOK BACK (Harcourt, $23.00, 2004;
Harvill, 2002). Rating: A [Reviewed by George Easter]
Fossum uses a child abduction in the first chapter to ramp
up the reader’s heart rate. But we soon find that it is
misdirection on her part and the real crime to be investigated
is that of a murdered young girl who is found naked,
lying at the side of a remote lake. The mild-mannered
Inspector Sejer (a polar opposite of Reg Hill’s detective
Dalziel) is assigned the case and very subtly uncovers
possible motives for the crime. The pacing of the novel is
slow, but the writing is so fine that it wasn’t a problem for
me to keep my interest level high. There are a number of
surprises along the way, especially at the end. I predict
that Karin Fossum will accumulate a cult following of
American fans in much the same way that Henning
Mankell has done.
� HE WHO FEARS THE WOLF (Harcourt,
$23.00, 2005; Harvill, £10.99, 2004). A boy arrives -breathless
and aghast -- at his police station, to report the
discovery of a horribly maimed body outside an isolated
house in the woods. Yet there was another person in the
woods that day -- standing nearby, hidden within the trees,
was the mysterious figure of the local misfit, Errki. The next
morning a bank in the nearby town is robbed at gunpoint.
The gunman takes a hostage and flees. As his plans begin
to come apart he, unlike his passive hostage, rapidly loses
control. Meanwhile the search for the killer has developed
into a manhunt -- everyone is looking for the enigmatic
Errki.
� WHEN THE DEVIL HOLDS THE CANDLE
(Harcourt, $24.00, 2006; Harvill, £10.99, 2004). Rating
B [Reviewed by Jeff Popple] Although this new novel
by Norwegian author Karin Fossum is described as being
an Inspector Sejer mystery, the Inspector does not appear
until after page 40 and only fleetingly features in the book
thereafter. The central focus is on Irma, an elderly woman
who is the intended victim of a break-in by a pair of young
teenage troublemakers. One of the boys, Andreas, enters
her house armed with his trusty flick-knife, while the other,
Zipp, waits nervously outside. When his friend never
reappears Zipp does not know what to do and waits for
Andreas to be reported missing. Unlike the police, the
5