Pearl's Picks for October
Pearl's Picks provides monthly reading suggestions from Nancy Pearl, the most widely known librarian of our time. These richly diverse book suggestions provide great reading experiences for readers of all ages and interests.
He Who Fears the Wolf
by Karin Fossum
One of the trends we've been seeing over the last few years is translations into English of mysteries by Scandinavian writers. One of the best, and — sadly — least well known, is Norwegian Karin Fossum. In He Who Fears the Wolf, Fossum brings back policeman Konrad Sejer, first introduced to American readers in Don't Look Back.
When an elderly woman is found murdered in her secluded house in the Norwegian countryside, the only suspect is a schizophrenic man who has escaped from the local asylum where he's been incarcerated. And the only possible witness to the crime is a disturbed teenage boy, whose hobby is killing crows with his bow and arrow. As Sejer works his way through the meager clues that are available, his work is complicated by the attitudes of many of the inhabitants of the small town where the killing took place. Despite that, Sejer comes to believe that the perpetrator of another crime — this one a bank robbery and hostage taking — is also somehow involved in the murder.
Fossum explores not only the psyches of these three wounded souls, but also delves into Sejer's inner life, revealing a lonely, no-longer-young cop, who is still grieving over the death of his wife. Readers looking for a dark and moody psychological thriller, à la Henning Mankell, will definitely want to check this out. And if you enjoy this as much as I did, don't miss Fossum's newest, The Water's Edge.