Author:Karin Fossum,Charlotte Barslund
Early one September three friends spend the weekend at a remote cabin by Dead Water Lake. With only a pale moon to light their way, they row across the water in the middle of the night. But only two of them return.
When the body of the third friend is discovered, Inspector Sejer is put in charge of the investigation. He is troubled by the apparent suicide and has an overwhelming sense that the surviving pair has something to hide. Weeks pass without further clues and then, in a nearby lake, the body of another teenage boy floats to the surface...
A terrific crime novel that explores culpability, peer group pressure, betrayal and paranoia. Fossum’s prose style, translated by Charlotte Barslund, is crisp and clear, with not a word wasted.
—— Reading MattersI not only enjoyed it but admired it, too. I also found it playing in my head for a long time afterwards, the effect on the reader every writer surely longs for
—— Lesley McDowell , Sunday HeraldThe seventh Inspector Sejer novel from Norway's leading female crime writer is, like its predecessors, a gem
—— Laura Wilson , GuardianThis is a battle of wits, conducted with chilly intensity and an unsettling sense of menace
—— Joan Smith , Sunday TimesFew match her ability to conjure an atmosphere of emotional as well as geographical desolation
—— Marcel Berlins , The TimesTautly told in a crisp translation of the Norwegian by Charlotte Barslund, the story is a riveting exploration of the consequences of crime, a whydunnit rather than the traditional whodunnit
—— Declan Burke , Irish TimesA brooding study of how one thoughtless action can have catastrophic consequences
—— Metro ScotlandFossum never forgets that her primary duty is to entertain, and she keeps her cut-to-the-bone mystery moving briskly
—— Barry Forshaw , Sunday TribuneNorwegian writer Karin Fossum has been turning out a steady and impressive body of work since long before Steig Larsson first put pen to paper...This is a first-rate psychological thriller, one of Fossum's best books to date.
—— The Review