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Overview
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.
Synopsis
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.
Marilyn Stasio
Andreas teams up with his socially inept friend, known as Zipp, to snatch a young mother's purse, harming her infant in the process, before they run off to break into the home of a reclusive old woman. Only Andreas manages to get into the house, and Fossum makes the odd choice of telegraphing much too early what eventually happens to him after he is trapped inside the home of this profoundly disturbed woman. Even with its suspense dissipated, the story is so chillingly told (in a lucid translation by Felicity David) that we can only marvel at the author's skill at illustrating how a random sequence of events can cause so many lives to intersect in so many horrifying ways.
— The New York Times
Editorials
Marilyn Stasio
Andreas teams up with his socially inept friend, known as Zipp, to snatch a young mother's purse, harming her infant in the process, before they run off to break into the home of a reclusive old woman. Only Andreas manages to get into the house, and Fossum makes the odd choice of telegraphing much too early what eventually happens to him after he is trapped inside the home of this profoundly disturbed woman. Even with its suspense dissipated, the story is so chillingly told (in a lucid translation by Felicity David) that we can only marvel at the author's skill at illustrating how a random sequence of events can cause so many lives to intersect in so many horrifying ways.— The New York Times
Publishers Weekly
Skillful characterization and revealing detail lift Fossum's third mystery to be published in the U.S. featuring thoughtful, intelligent Insp. Konrad Sejer (after 2005's He Who Fears the Wolf). Handsome Andreas Winther, a self-absorbed, dangerously restless 18-year-old, manages to draw both sympathy and disgust from the reader. He roams the streets of an unnamed provincial Norwegian town in the evenings, accompanied by his socially inept friend, Sivert "Zipp" Skorpe, and fueled by the enormity of a secret he keeps. One evening, after mugging a young mother, Andreas decides to break into an old woman's house to rob her. His intended victim, Irma Funder, has a complicated health situation and a more complicated psyche. In defending herself, Irma pushes Andreas down the cellar stairs, where he lands unnaturally twisted, unable to move but alive. What develops between the immobile boy and the reclusive woman is a bizarre, excruciating, curiously tender relationship that serves as a pathetic and poignant balance to the hunt for Andreas conducted by Sejer and his police colleague, Jacob Skarre. (July) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.Bookpage
"[I]t is an impossible book to put down, a psychological thriller that will haunt you long after the final page has been turned."
— Bruce Tierney
Curled Up with a Good Book.com
"A stunning exploration of social isolation... Masterfully plotted."
Kirkus Reviews
"Fossum . . . writes like Ruth Rendell with the gloves off."Libary Journal
"This is not your usual police procedural -- Fossum's third Sejer novel ... is psyhcological suspense at its best." —Jo Ann VicarelNew York Times
"[T]he story is so chillingly told that we can only marvel at the author''s skill at illustrating how a random sequence of events can cause so many lives to intersect in so many horrifying ways."
— Marilyn Stasio
O Magazine
"Either somebody just slid an ice cube down your back or you''re reading the opening pages of When the Devil Holds the Candle...a psychological tour de force."