Broken

Richard Lipez

In one sense, Broken isn't even a mystery. The only crime committed comes late in the story; it's almost anti-climactic. Yet Fossum builds suspense almost entirely through the ongoing collision of Alvar…and young Lindys, a damaged wraith of a girl who constantly tests him with her crude demands…The "broken" of the title refers to a painting of a collapsed bridge that Alvar had yearned to buy before Lindys barged in and ran through nearly all his money. It's an obvious but apt metaphor for the kinds of injured lives that Karin Fossum evokes so brilliantly in her Inspector Sejer mysteries and now in this odd, memorable book.
—The Washington Post

Publishers Weekly

In an odd departure from her Inspector Sejer series, Norwegian crime novelist Fossum (The Water's Edge) tells the story of a writer confronted by a character of her own creation. As the nameless female narrator explains, the characters for her future novels line up in her driveway in roughly the order she'll write their tales. One night, a man she names Alvar Eide--currently second in line--cuts to the front and demands his story be told. Fossum alternates between Eide's sedate life near Drammen, where he works in an art gallery, and his discussions with his "creator" about how certain events should play out. The first hint of tension appears in the form of an enigmatic 18-year-old girl, who comes into the gallery one winter afternoon and strikes up a conversation with Eide. Despite an intriguing concept, Fossum never fully sheds the artificiality of a writer writing about a writer writing. (Aug.)

Library Journal

In a stark departure from her award-winning Inspector Sejer series (The Water's Edge), Fossum offers insight into the mind and work of a mystery writer. A first-person author, with a line of potential characters waiting at her door, is awakened one night by a man who jumps the line, so anxious is he to have his story told. He is Alvar Eide, who at 42 leads a solitary life working in an art gallery and believes himself to be a good person. Then he falls in love with a painting, priced at a sum that would take all his savings, and befriends a young heroin addict, a skinny girl with translucent skin, who follows him home and insinuates herself into his life, with predictably tragic results. VERDICT Eide's story is interrupted repeatedly by his meetings with the author, as he questions his story and she shares hers in a structure that seems both self-indulgent and illuminating on Fossum's part. With its remarkably detailed portrait of Eide, this suspenseful story may be a regarded as a gift by Fossum's devotees; others may find it more a fleshed-out novelette, albeit in the author's typically crisp and insightful prose. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 3/15/10.]—Michele Leber, Arlington, VA