30. Don't Look Back - Karin Fossum

Translated from Norwegian by Felicity David
A Harvest Book; Harcourt, Inc., 2002
$14.00 paperback
295 pgs.
Rating:  4.5

I'm not even sure why I didn't rate this a 5, because I liked it very much.  The translation was wonderful, she used outstanding words, out-of-the-ordinary vocabulary which was delightful, I reread a number of passages for the beauty of the words alone.  At first I thought it was going to be easily solved because a few seemingly blatant clues were included, but I was very, very wrong.  Perhaps this is why I didn't rate it a five, the first fourth or fifth of the book I was so sure I knew what was going to happen that I didn't pay it enough heed.  Big mistake.

Chief Inspector Konrad Sejer is the crime solver in this story.  He works in a small town in Norway, near enough to Oslo that they can drive.  He is aided by his curly-haired young sidekick named Skarre who is learning as he helps and watches Sejer.  We get to know many people in the small town, and most of the people that live near the neighborhood where the victim in the story resides.

Young Annie Holland has been found murdered, but not assaulted, by the tarn. Only 16, everyone only has kind words to say about here.  She was pretty, athletic, kind, and a babysitter for many of the families that lived nearby.  She had a very nice boyfriend and no enemies.  But as Sejer begins asking questions and putting pieces together, he finds that her happy-go-lucky attitude changed at a certain time in the recent past.  Now he has to discover why, and if this had anything at all to do with her murder.

The book also begins and ends in a way that keep you guessing, seals everything up, then keeps you guessing again.  Good storytelling.  I didn't realize how strange-to-English-speaking-ears Norwegian names would be.  Annie, Konrad, Raymond, okay.  The rest weren't:  Ragnhild, Thorbjorn, Snorrason, Halvor, Solvi, Eskil.....so interesting.  Really puts you into the setting even more.  But I still couldn't quite picture the place, that was the one weakness for me.  I could only picture some of it in my mind.  But really good story.