Falling in Love with Karin Fossum

I'm not one for mysteries. There never seems to be a shortage of hard-boiled, alcoholic detectives with ex-wives and troubled children. Every time I wander into the mystery section, I feel a yawn rising in my chest. I've picked up so many books and it's the same thing for me. Either an American mystery with the same page-turning gusto of a Michael Bay movie where you have to keep reading because your reptilian brain won't forgive you if you don't or another badly translated, badly written Scandinavian novel (or trilogy of novels....hmmmm what could they be?) with boring characters who speak boring dialogue. And the narration is terrible (really can anyone explain the popularity of Steig Larsson's books? Come on....)

(Though to my mother's credit, I applaud English mysteries in her honor and hopefully, eventually, will get around to them when I get the time.)

The mystery section, in other words is the last section for me in the book store. 

But there are a few shining lights and one I must mention is Karin Fossum. 

I simply love her books. I first came across her by accident while perusing Amazon.com. I had read the Toronto's Star bi-weekly 'Whodunnit' section and came across the name of an Icelandic writer. I requested the book from the library only to find it a bit disappointing (again hard-nosed detective who drinks a little too much and has a drug-addicted daughter....and a case that 'can't' be solved...blah, blah, blah...). 

When I went back to Amazon I wanted to see if all Scandinavian mystery novelists were the same. To my eternal joy and happiness I found the name of Karin Fossum among the Amazon recommends section.(I found others but they're not worth mentioning, their books seemingly suffering from bad translation and typical plot-lines relying too much on shock and gore instead of good characters.)

I started with Se deg ikke tilbake or Don't Look Back, her first novel to be translated into English from Norwegian. And all I can say is I can't look back. The book is excellent and best of all, believable. 

The story revolves around the mystery of a girl found naked on a cold Norwegian beach. Detective Sejer is heading the investigation, an older, well-seasoned but certainly not cynical police man. Though he has a world weariness to him, he demonstrates poise and diplomacy and is tough and terse when he needs to be. There is no element of corruption in his character and though he might sound like a by-the-book gumshoe, he's more a down-to-earth realist who simply wants to get thing solved and set right. There is an Everyman quality and he isn't perfect. He has regrets, he suffers from the loss of his wife. He knows he won out by meeting and marrying her. There is an element of mourning but an equally real motivation to let the past be and move on. 

His sidekick Skarre smokes cigarettes. He is young and attractive and there's a kindness to him. Though he might appear innocent and wide-eyed, he's no rookie and works alongside Sejer. 

What I loved about the book is the simplicity, the directness of the text. A good artist paints a picture but a great one allows you to step in it. And that's how Fossum works. She relies on the reader's imagination to help her paint the scenes. Most readers have an idea of the Norwegian countryside and so she helps us in some ways, but she lets us go in others. Her descriptions are rarely elaborate and exaggerated. I would say she sets up her world with a modicum of sentences. The spareness is beautiful and often bewildering because it seems we are following just behind the main characters, getting lost with them, wondering the same things. 

Something similar could be said for all her books. We are there and the best part of being there, is the feeling, both in the moods of the characters and their emotions. We sympathize with Sejer because he in turn is sympathetic. We learn he has a daughter and the daughter has adopted a boy from Africa. Fossum sheds light on the racism in Norway where in such books as When The Devil Holds the Candle and The Indian Bride, the immigrant and the outsider are given harsh treatment. 

There is also a great deal of compassion felt for the mentally ill. Fossum herself worked in hospitals and nursing homes and was most likely no strange to the trials of the psychologically wounded. This is evident in He Who Fears the Wolf, Black Seconds and Bad Intentions. Her crazier characters are often more sane and human than her criminals which exhibit their own crazed behavior. 

And yet, I often hesitate to use the word 'criminal'. The guilty are guilty but there are too many shades of grey here in Fossum's Norwary, a nice contrast to the black and white we see in  our typical American mystery where we are safe with the good guy and threatened by the bad. With Sejer, there are often cases  he has to deal with where the criminal is an old lady or just some kid in the wrong place at the wrong time. The so-called 'bad intentions' aren't really 'intentions', just results of a situation gone wrong which makes the endings of her books feel more incomplete and of course, more real. The case might be closed or it might not be. It's all so ambiguous and complicated and all-too-human.

I've read nearly all her books and I've not been disappointed with a single one. Some I've loved more than others but as a whole, I love them the way any voracious reader would love a writer who continually delivers. I can look forward to Sejer, to his outlook, to his development. At one point he had a dog who passed on. At one point he had a girlfriend, a doctor in a mental hospital with a kinkiness to her. Like in life, people and loved ones come and go. In my latest Fossum read, Bad Intentions, the reader encounter's a moment in which Sejer faces his own fears and thoughts regarding mortality following a walk with Skarre. 

Again I don't read mystery but I wouldn't call Karin Fossum just a mystery a writer. She transcends the genre, makes it personal, making it, in short, her own. For me, it is literature with a mystery. Her books are like the best friends you want to keep in contact with. Seeing where it all goes in turn allows the reading to feel even more rewarding. She's an author who values the intelligence of the reader and over delivers with her characters, her stories and her writing.

And when someone goes above and beyond, thinks the best of us, doesn't insult our intelligence or rely upon the derivative to sell her story, what's not to love? (Fans of the Larsson, you really need to see the light...)

(A final note, I must acknowledge the astute and careful work of translators like Charlotte Barslund that have made Fossum's world so readily available in English. Without people like her, the atmosphere, mood and credibility of another world would remain alien and inaccessible. Many, many, many thanks Charlotte.)