Synopses & Reviews
Ida Joner gets on her brand-new bike and sets off toward town. A good-natured, happy girl, she is looking forward to her tenth birthday. Thirty-five minutes after Ida should have come home, her mother starts to worry. She phones store owners, Idas friendsanyone who could have seen her. But no one has.
Suspicion immediately falls on Emil Mork, a local character who lives alone and hasnt spoken since childhood. His mother insists on cleaning his house weeklyalthough shes sometimes afraid of what she might find there. A mothers worst nightmare in either caseto lose a child or to think a child capable of murder. As Idas relatives reach the breaking point and the media frenzy surrounding the case begins, Inspector Konrad Sejer is his usual calm and reassuring self. But hes puzzled. And disturbed. This is the strangest case hes seen in years.
Review
PRAISE FOR KARIN FOSSUM
"With sharp psychological insight and a fine grasp on police procedure, Fossum is easily one of the best new imports the genre has to offer."The Baltimore Sun
"In spare, incisive prose, Fossum turns a conventional police procedural into a sensitive examination of troubled minds and a disturbing look at the way society views them . . . A superb writer of psychological suspense."The New York Times
Review
Praise for BLACK SECONDS: "It doesn't take a terrorist, a serial killer or some paranormal force to rattle the insular Norwegian communities Karin Fossum writes about in her quietly unnerving thrillers. In BLACK SECONDS, all it takes is the disappearance of a child." -- Marilyn Stasio, New York Times Book Review "What a spare, artful novel this is: how lean, how swift, how bitterly sad." --Washington Post
Synopsis
When a young girl disappears, suspicion immediately falls on a local character who lives alone and hasn't spoken since childhood. As the media frenzy surrounding the case begins, Inspector Konrad Sejer steps in. But he's puzzled--this is the strangest case he's seen in years.
About the Author
KARIN FOSSUM is the author of many novels and two collections of short stories. Her crime novels featuring Inspector Sejer have been translated into sixteen languages. When the Devil Holds the Candle won a Gumshoe Award in 2007. She lives in a small town in southeastern Norway.