by Karin Fossum ; translated by James Anderson ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 12, 2014
Despite a conclusion as unsatisfying as it is inevitable, a chilling portrait of a dead-eyed devil whose self-excusing...
Fossum gives Inspector Konrad Sejer (Eva’s Eye, 2013, etc.) a sabbatical so she can plumb the depths of a sociopathic nurse without a corrective moral counterpart.
Riktor has always known he’s different from everyone else. He can see in the dark. He’s given to bursts of irrational rage. And he doesn’t really care about people, not at all. Naturally, he’s taken a job as a geriatric nurse at the Løkka Nursing Home so he can make a difference in the lives of dying patients—for instance, by whispering invective to them, poking them in the eyes or switching their medications. When he’s left to watch a crippled child for a few moments, he effortlessly finds a way to torment her, and when he sees a cross-country skier plunge beneath the surface of an icy lake, he makes no move to help. It’s only a matter of time before Riktor graduates to murder, and once he does, the police are bound to find their way to his door. But the murder for which he’s arrested isn’t the one he committed. Indignant, he protests his innocence to Randers, the arresting officer, and Philip de Reuter, his court-appointed attorney. Wait till the trial, they both assure him. And as he waits, an improbable change steals over him. He’s unaccountably drawn to Margareth, the prison cook, and begins a new relationship with Ebba Neumann, the retired accountant whose endless crocheting always seemed the limit of her engagement with the world. By the time the trial finally arrives, he’s eager to tell his story. Fans of Fossum’s dark fiction will know better than to share his optimism.
Despite a conclusion as unsatisfying as it is inevitable, a chilling portrait of a dead-eyed devil whose self-excusing mantra is “If I only had a woman!”Pub Date: Aug. 12, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-544-11442-5
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2014
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by Karin Fossum ; translated by Kari Dickson
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by Karin Fossum
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by Karin Fossum ; translated by Kari Dickson
by Kathy Reichs ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 17, 2020
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.
Another sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan.
A week after the night she chases but fails to catch a mysterious trespasser outside her town house, some unknown party texts Tempe four images of a corpse that looks as if it’s been chewed by wild hogs, because it has been. Showboat Medical Examiner Margot Heavner makes it clear that, breaking with her department’s earlier practice (The Bone Collection, 2016, etc.), she has no intention of calling in Tempe as a consultant and promptly identifies the faceless body herself as that of a young Asian man. Nettled by several errors in Heavner’s analysis, and even more by her willingness to share the gory details at a press conference, Tempe launches her own investigation, which is not so much off the books as against the books. Heavner isn’t exactly mollified when Tempe, aided by retired police detective Skinny Slidell and a host of experts, puts a name to the dead man. But the hints of other crimes Tempe’s identification uncovers, particularly crimes against children, spur her on to redouble her efforts despite the new M.E.’s splenetic outbursts. Before he died, it seems, Felix Vodyanov was linked to a passenger ferry that sank in 1994, an even earlier U.S. government project to research biological agents that could control human behavior, the hinky spiritual retreat Sparkling Waters, the dark web site DeepUnder, and the disappearances of at least four schoolchildren, two of whom have also turned up dead. And why on earth was Vodyanov carrying Tempe’s own contact information? The mounting evidence of ever more and ever worse skulduggery will pull Tempe deeper and deeper down what even she sees as a rabbit hole before she confronts a ringleader implicated in “Drugs. Fraud. Breaking and entering. Arson. Kidnapping. How does attempted murder sound?”
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9821-3888-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
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by Kathy Reichs
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by Allen Eskens ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 14, 2014
Eskens’ debut is a solid and thoughtful tale of a young man used to taking on burdens beyond his years—none more dangerous...
A struggling student’s English assignment turns into a mission to solve a 30-year-old murder.
Joe Talbert has had very few breaks in his 21 years. The son of a single and very alcoholic mother, he’s worked hard to save enough money to leave his home in Austin, Minnesota, for the University of Minnesota. Although he has to leave his autistic younger brother, Jeremy Naylor, to the dubious care of their mother, Joe is determined to beat the odds and get his degree. For an assignment in his English class, he decides to interview Carl Iverson, a man convicted of raping and killing a 14-year-old girl. Carl, who maintains his innocence, is dying of cancer and has been released to a nursing home to end his life in lonely but unrepentant pain. The more Joe learns about Carl—a Vietnam vet with two Purple Hearts and a Silver Cross—the more the young man questions the conviction. Joe’s plan to write a short biography and earn an easy A turns into something more. Even after his mother is arrested for drunk driving and guilt-trips Joe into ransacking his college fund to bail her out, he soldiers on with the project, though her irresponsibility forces him to take Jeremy into his care. But it’s his younger brother who cracks the code of the long-dead murder victim’s secret diary and an attractive neighbor, Lila Nash, who has her own agenda for helping Joe solve the mystery, whatever the risk.
Eskens’ debut is a solid and thoughtful tale of a young man used to taking on burdens beyond his years—none more dangerous than championing a bitter old man convicted of a horrific crime.Pub Date: Oct. 14, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61614-998-7
Page Count: 300
Publisher: Seventh Street Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 8, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2014
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