In “Nattløperen” we get to know Karin Fossum’s new detective better, after Konrad Sejer was allowed to retire. Eddie Feber is still a rather interesting acquaintance, atypical for Nordic literary detectives. He is small and quick, and looks a lot like Rami Malek, the one who played Freddie Mercury in that movie. With a keen eye for detail, Eddie Feber has an infamous ability to sniff out an opponent’s weak point. Feber is also a family man, to that extent. With a bunch of kids at home, as well as a wife who is in the industry, in a way. While Eddie is out in the police car hunting real villains, his wife sits in the office and makes up the most terrible stories and writes them down as crime novels. Much like Karin Fossum, in other words. Feber is an interesting contrast to Sejer, who was more of a pensive loner. He also forms a clear counterpoint to what is the typical criminal in Karin Fossum’s universe, who is not always, but quite often, a lonely, disturbed man, a person we alternate between feeling sorry for and disgusted by. The nuanced and close-up portraits of the criminal mind are part of what characterizes Fossum’s writing style, and which elevates her from pure crime fiction to readers with a penchant for fiction. Bad heritage This year’s loser from Fossum is an eighteen-year-old boy with a troubled family background, both emotionally and genetically, it will turn out. The youngster has lived a secluded and relatively harmonious life in recent years. But it ends the day he finds his grandfather dead in bed. Robbed of the only stability he has known, his thoughts begin to buzz, and find unpleasant, dangerous paths, they open new chambers in his head, as he describes it himself. With a mother in a psychiatric institution and a father in prison, he has no one to lean on. And the worst part is that the father, a notorious criminal and violent man, will soon be set free. As the clock ticks down towards the day the dreaded father is released, the youngster’s obsessions and obsessions grow worse. Meanwhile, Eddie Feber has his share of struggles, and not just with the young pack. Disturbing reports come in of a terrifying figure breaking into elderly people in the middle of the night. No one appreciates being woken up by a glowing face standing and aiming a heavy-caliber revolver at you – and then pulls away. So far no one has been shot, just scared out of their wits and collection. But here it is only a matter of time before the first shot is fired. Crime’s game of chance The motif of the killer letting chance decide whether the victims will live or die has of course been used before (“No Country for Old Men”). The idea is probably that the killer personifies the randomness of life, where the vagaries of fate and the roll of the dice decide who will live or die, succeed or fail. At the same time, the murderer in this book is also exposed to the unpredictable, and it will be shown that even the best-directed staging of the game of chance can itself be re-caulked by luck and bad luck. As I write this review, I notice that I like the premise of this novel, it’s well thought out, well seen. Nevertheless, I think it fails in the implementation, especially the coherence of the plot. As usual, Fossum writes good sentences and has a firm grip on his crippled minds. But here I think the ending in particular is too forced, too hard to believe. Even if one takes into account that there are coincidences and dead ends in a human life, they must still be portioned out carefully in a crime novel. So, well thought out, but not quite implemented from Fossum this time. Read and see more about Karin Fossum: Karin Fossum was Norway’s first crime queen, and one of the pioneers of the Nordic Crime wave abroad. Now she has withdrawn from the limelight. The book program was nevertheless allowed to come home to Fossum to talk about crime, the writing process and her dramatic relationship with life. Portrait series with Norwegian authors. (1:8)
ttn-69
“The night runner” by Karin Fossum – Reviews and recommendations
