Dark, dense and delicious. ( )

What the … ? This was a very disappointing entry in the Inspector Sejer series. Three young men are spending the weekend in a lake cabin, and one dies. The other two come up with a version of events that points to suicide. About halfway through the book, the young men are linked to another crime. The details unfold in a very predictable way. There’s no drama, no twist, just one long reveal.

I had several problems with this book. There really wasn’t a mystery; it’s apparent from the beginning that the young men are trouble. Inspector Sejer and his partner are peripheral characters and don’t even solve the crime. I guess this was intended to be more of a psychological thriller, but it failed in that regard as well. The young men were one-dimensional characters who did not earn any sympathy. The translation of these novels can be clunky at times, so I can only hope this book is better in the original Norwegian. ( )

The question in this excellent thriller by Karen Fossum isn't who, but what, and the suspense is gripping. The first act puts us at woodland cabin next to a lake, where three young men venture out onto the water in a small boat. One falls, or jumps, in: the others do not attempt to save him, but go back to shore and "discover" in the morning that their comrade is missing. The dead young man was under intense psychological pressure related to a recent unspecified incident involving all three. Did it drive him to suicide, and what was it? That's the question that the book explores, with the relentless Inspector Sejer becoming more and more convinced that the two men who survive are guilty of a crime. It is fascinating and compelling to follow the gradual peeling back of the facts in the case, and of the personalities and pasts of people in the case. Very low key, but a powerful read nonetheless. ( )

I couldn't put this book down even thought my adored Inspector Sejer plays an exceedingly minimal part in and even though Fossum broadly hints at what happened (although withholding the details until the end). Two friends in their early 20s sign a third friend out of a mental hospital for the weekend and head to a cabin by a lake. Something goes very wrong and the mentally unstable friend drowns. One of the remaining friends is a charismatic control freak and the other is always high or yearning to get high. The hint is that something happened some months ago when a younger man went missing and this is what sent the friend to the mental hospital and drove the other friend to getting high. What makes this book un-put-downable is, as always, Fossum's brilliant characterizations. I'm going on to the next one, which is the last that has been translated into English.

A very slight novel, the writing is good but the book feels unfiinished. ( )