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Summary
Summary
In the wake of Stieg Larsson's best-selling novels, readers are discovering the rich trove of modern Scandinavian crime fiction. If you've devoured the Millennium trilogy and are looking for your next read, Karin Fossum and her bone-chillingly bleak psychological thrillers have won the admiration of the likes of Ruth Rendell and Colin Dexter (of Inspector Morse fame).
In Bad Intentions , the newest installment in the Inspector Sejer series since The Water's Edge in 2009, Konrad Sejer must face down his memories and fears as he struggles to determine why the corpses of troubled young men keep surfacing in local lakes.
The first victim, Jon Moreno, was getting better. His psychiatrist said so, and so did his new friend at the hospital, Molly Gram, with her little-girl-lost looks. He was racked by a mysterious guilt that had driven him to a nervous breakdown one year earlier. But when he drowns in Dead Water Lake, Sejer hesitates to call it a suicide.
Then another corpse is found in a lake, a Vietnamese immigrant. And Sejer begins to feel his age weigh on him. Does he still have the strength to pursue the elusive explanations for human evil?
Author Notes
KARIN FOSSUM is the author of the internationally successful Inspector Konrad Sejer crime series. Her recent honors include a Gumshoe Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for mystery/thriller. She lives in Norway.
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Fossum's excellent seventh Insp. Konrad Sejer mystery (after 2009's The Water's Edge) focuses on three young men-the disturbingly intuitive Axel Frimann, the bumbling drug addict Philip Reilly, and the painfully sensitive Jon Moreno. They've been friends forever, but something happens that alters the dynamic among them and causes the unbalanced Moreno to abruptly throw himself out of a small boat into a lake outside Oslo called, appropriately, Dead Water. Sejer and his partner, Jacob Skarre, find no evidence of murder, but something is off, as suggested by Frimann and Reilly altering the details of the suicide. When the body of a 17-year-old Vietnamese immigrant, Kim Van Chau, surfaces in another lake, Sejer discovers that the trio were at the same party as Chau the night he went missing. While Sejer isn't as active as in earlier entries in this fine series, his distinctive presence still enriches the story. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
Norway's Inspector Konrad Sejer is less an agent or character than a brooding presence in this slim, penetrating tale of a falling-out among conspirators.Jon Moreno's childhood friends have signed him out of the Ladegrden Psychiatric Hospital for only a weekend, but he doesn't survive even their first night. Instead he falls out of their boat and into the lake called Dead Water. Philip Reilly, the big porter at Central Hospital, wants first to dive in after him and then, once all hope is gone, to call the police. But Axel Frimann, the advertising executive who's always been the leader of the trio, easily talks him out of both ideas and into lying to Sejer and his sergeant, Jacob Skarre, when they do show up, exactly as if they'd committed some sort of crime. The investigation that follows is understated but pointed, especially after the diary Jon left behind makes it clear that he was indeed involved in something that had left him shattered and wracked by guilt. And the discovery of the swollen body of Kim Van Chau, found in Glitter Lake nine months after he disappeared from a party at which all three friends were present, provides an obvious foundation for those feelings. But what exactly caused Kim's death, and what can Sejer do about it?Sejer's questioning, the diary, an accident at Jon's funeral, a kitten Reilly rescues from the woodsthey all pave the way for a climax with strong echoes of Chaucer's Pardoner's Tale.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
Psychiatric patient Jon Moreno is released for a weekend excursion with childhood friends Phillip Reilly and Axel Frimann. When the three young men row to the middle of a lake on a frigid Norwegian night, anxiety-riddled Moreno falls overboard and drowns, and the surviving duo try to pass off the incident as a suicide. But Insp. Konrad Sejer isn't convinced. Guilt consumes the drug-addled Reilly while the reptilian Frimann struggles to maintain his composure as Sejer's investigation uncovers a link between the men and a recent missing-persons case-a connection that may explain the secret behind Moreno's mental illness and the baffling circumstances of his death. VERDICT Fossum checks in with the seventh installment of her psychologically acute Inspector Sejer series after taking a brief detour last year with the stand-alone Broken. Although her prose is as sharp as ever, the characterizations are uncharacteristically thin, and the steely Sejer appears only sporadically. Fossum is one of Nordic noir's most skilled practitioners, but Sejer's faithful fans might be disappointed by his lukewarm return. [See Prepub Alert, 2/14/11.]-Annabelle Mortensen, Skokie P.L., IL (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Excerpts
Excerpts
Chapter 1 THE LAKE, WHICH WAS commonly known as Dead ¬Water, lay like a well between steep mountains, and anyone who tried to wade into it would sink up to their knees in its soft mud. On the shore, partially hidden by spruce trees, sat a small log cabin. Axel Frimann was looking out of the window. It was almost midnight on September 13 and the moon cast a pale blue light across the water. There was something magical about it all. At any moment, Axel imagined, a water sprite might rise from the depths. Just as the image came to him, he thought he saw a ripple in the water as though something was about to surface. But nothing happened and a smile, which no one noticed, crossed his face. He turned to the other two and suggested that they should go rowing. "Have you seen the light," he said, "it's really cool." Philip Reilly was reading. He tossed his long hair. "Yes, why not?" he said. "A trip on the lake. What do you say, Jon?" Jon Moreno was lost in the flames of the fireplace. The fire made him feel warm and dizzy. In his hand he held a blister pack of anti-anxiety pills and every four hours he pressed one through the foil and put it in his mouth. Did he want to go out on the lake? He looked at Axel and Reilly. There is something about their eyes, something evasive, he thought, but then again, I'm not quite myself, I'm ill, I'm taking medication, calm down, they're my friends, they just want what's best for me. But he did not want to go out on the lake, not in the middle of the night in the cold moonlight. He did not trust himself completely. In here by the fire he felt safe, in here between the timber walls, in the company of his friends, because they were his friends, weren't they? He tried to catch Reilly's eye, but Reilly had got up and was fumbling with something on a shelf. "It's important that you get some exercise," Axel said. "Sitting still only makes your anxiety worse. You need to get your blood circulating, get it delivering oxygen to your cells. So come on." Jon did not want to let them down. They were doing this for him, they wanted him to have some fun and he did not have much of that at the hospital. Only endless days where nothing ever happened, spent wandering up and down the corridors. They were smiling at him, encouraging him now, Axel with his dark eyes, Reilly with his gray ones. So he got up from the chair and put the blister pack in his pocket. He never went anywhere without it. He reached out for his cell phone which lay on the table, but changed his mind. His anxiety hummed through his body like an electric current. Somewhere a demon is flicking a switch, on and off, on and off, he thought, and I can't breathe. "Put your jacket on," Axel said. "It's chilly." Jon looked around for his jacket. He could not remember where he had put it, but Axel found it and brought it over. Reilly blew out the paraffin lamp and a sudden darkness descended upon them. Jon knelt down to lace up his boots. A knot and a bow followed by another knot. Axel and Reilly waited. "What about the fire?" Jon asked. "We won't be gone long, there's no danger," Axel said. "Come on." "Shouldn't we put the fireguard in front of it?" Axel shrugged. "All right." He disappeared into the kitchen and they heard him scrabbling. Then he returned with the fireguard and placed it in front of the fire. The cast-iron fireguard was decorated with two wolves baring their teeth. Jon looked at the wolves and at his two friends. "We ready to go then?" Axel said. Reilly nodded. Jon stuck his hands in his pockets. Axel patted him on the shoulder. His hand was warm and comforting. Trust us, the hand said, we only want what's best for you, you're among friends. It was Friday, September 13. They went out into the dark night and fetched the oars from the shed. A narrow path led down to the shore of Dead Water. Excerpted from Bad Intentions by Karin Fossum All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
