Eva's Eye

The book opens with two seemingly unrelated murders - a woman found dead in her apartment, and miles away, a man has washed up into the river. Eva Marie Magnus, however, lies at the center of this plot. She and her daughter discover the man’s body, but rather than report it to the police, she makes a different call and takes her daughter out for a meal. Though Eva’s perspective is central to the novel, it is actually Inspector Sejer who is the series’ lead character - and it is easy to see why. He is an intriguing, caring and genuinely kindly man.The plot moves forwards and then backwards in time, but this convoluted chronology works well as the full story unravels. It’s an interesting novel but does rely on some rather extraordinary coincidences. There are some abrupt and rather unfortunate shifts in perspective that disrupts the flow of the narrative. But, this serves an intriguing beginning to the series and I am looking forward to reading the next novel in the series.

Eva’s Eye by Karin Fossum is the first book in her ten book Inspecter Konrad Sejer series. I have read Fossum’s other books, however Eva’s Eye, the first in the series, is just now being translated to English. In book one Eva and her daughter stumble across a dead man while out for a walk and soon Sejer and Skarre are into the thick of tings and the book takes off. Fossum’s writing in the first book of the series is solid, her characters are fantastic and this Norwegian mystery is not to be missed by either fans of Fossum’s or by fans of suspense mysteries.

A steady moving, middle to ends told mystery of two deaths only connected by proximity of the victims on the night of the first death. The coincidences of the plot are the weakness of the book, but the characters have a real texture.

The first in a series that may still needs to find its feet. Two people have been murdered within a short space: a high-end prostitute had been killed in her apartment six months earlier, and now the bloated body of a local brewery worker, who disappeared with in days of the prostitute's murder, has turned up in the local river. The lead detective thinks their deaths must be related. Sounds like a good set-up, but most of the story is told by a seemingly peripheral artist who comes into the detective's sites. There's very little suspense, as she just tells her story straight out. Maybe I'm just being picky, but I like my detective stories to have more detection in them. Still, I'll give the next one a try.

Eva witnesses the murder of her best friend from childhood who has become a wealthy prostitute. Eva on the other hand is a passionate artist, single mother, and broke. Her morals get tested severely by her wish for revenge and her access to her late friend's money. Sejer, the detective assigned to another murder, doggedly pursues the possibility of connections in order to find the murderer.

Eva Magnus and her seven-year-old daughter Emma are walking by the river when they see a body in the water. Eva, who is an artist and a single mother, heads for the nearest payphone, telling her daughter she is calling the police. Instead she calls her father and makes small talk, pretending to her daughter that she's called the police. Then she and her daughter head for McDonald's as if nothing happened. When the police arrive, alerted by another person, it doesn’t take long for Inspector Sejer and his team to establish that the dead man, Egil Einarsson, was stabbed to death. He had been missing for months but by now the trail has gone cold. Inspector Sejer finds it almost as mysterious as the other unsolved case he is working on, the murder of a known prostitute, Maja Durban, found dead just before Egil went missing.

Sejer’s investigations leads us back to Eva and her strange reaction to the corpse, as well as a mysterious note left by the dead man. The investigation keeps pushing Sejer back to Eva and he eventually brings her in for questioning. What follows then is a complete change in the narrative. The events leading up to the murder begin to unfold and take up the majority of the book, told in a third-person narrative flashback, to a time when the two murder victims were still alive. The story is written in an intense way, filled with seemingly unrelated threads.

I've had the Inspector Sejer series on my TBR list for a long, long time and for some reason I just have never started it. Maybe it's because I have so many other series underway and didn't feel like I could add another, but I've been making a terrible mistake. Sejer is fascinating due to his sheer ordinariness. He's a conservative, middle-aged widower who is patient and a good listener. He's a great detective, simply because he refuses to give up. I'm pushing this series right to the top and can't wait to read the next one.

Easy to read Norwegian crime drama.With a few twists and turns.This is the first Detective Sejer novel.A lady working as a prostitute is murdered in her own home, then a few weeks later a body of a local man is pulled out of the river.Are these cases linked Sejer thinks so and digs deep until he uncovers the truth.This is a good book.

READ IN DUTCH

This is a slightly different detective in the sense that we don't follow the POV of the inspector, though he's part of the book, but that of the woman who finds a body floating in the water when walking with her young daughter. Unlike many other novels, she doesn't actively help investigating the crime, but rather, tries to continue her normal life.
During the story, it becomes more and more clear that she's more than just a passer by who's unlucky enough to find a body...



Some things were a bit strange in this novel. What really struck me as odd, and I still recalled it even after almost five years (!); is that the main character and her daughter went straight to the McDonalds after discovering a body. Time for a HappyMeal!

The rest of the story isn't very special, but at the end there is a major twist I didn't see coming at all. And that is what makes me remember this book still after all this time.

At last, the first of the Inspector Sejer series has appeared in English, and what a terrific beginning it is. I have read anything of Karin Fossum's that I have been able to find in translation, and this is one of her very best. Like the other novels in this series, "Eva's Eye" is more a psychological thriller than a standard police procedural, though Inspector Sejer is a very convincing detective. Ms. Fossum combines the best of the thriller genre -- a driving plot that keeps those pages turning -- with a skils of character development, emotional involvement, and pure good writing that one would normally associate with "literary" fiction. A real delight.

I have often bemoaned the fact that American publishers have the annoying tendency to release European mystery series books out of order. This was done in the case of Karin Fossum's excellent Inspector Sejer series. Eight books were published before Eva's Eye, which is actually the first. For once I'm glad that they weren't published in the proper sequence. Konrad Sejer is one of my favorite police officers, but if I had been introduced to him with this book, I doubt if I would have continued with the series.The reason for this is because Eva's Eye has everything to do with the character of Eva Magnus and little to do with Konrad Sejer. Everything revolves around Eva's eye: her art (in which Sejer seems to be the only person who sees something meaningful), her young daughter Emma, how Eva views her life... everything. Eva Magnus is a fascinating character who grabs the focus of the book and runs away with it. As is also seen in The Murder of Harriet Krohn, Fossum seems to like to focus on a different character from time to time.In comparison Konrad Sejer is merely interesting. If I'd read this book first, I would have admired Fossum's characterization of the title character and given a passing nod to Sejer's determination to solve these two puzzling cases-- but there just didn't seem to be enough about this oftentimes brilliant man to warrant my coming back for more.All this makes it sound as though I did not enjoy the book. On the contrary-- I enjoyed it a lot. As the story gradually unfolds and I learned how deeply involved Eva is in every facet, I had to know more about this self-absorbed woman. At book's end I could only shake my head in disbelief (and admiration) at how well Fossum put this intricate plot together. And-- having already become familiar with Sejer, his personality and his deductive methods-- I could only admire him, too. I'm just glad I didn't read this book first.

Read the English translation.

Inspector Sejer and his faithful canine companion Kollberg investigate the murder of a floater and manage to put the puzzle together and connect the victim with an earlier, seemingly unconnected, victim. This is the first one in the Inspector Sejer series and, since I've read a later one, I can ignore that this is a little shaky and just enjoy seeing the origins of the characters. The mystery is good and I'm looking forward to following Konrad and Kollberg in the other books in the series.

I really, really liked this book!

She is a pleasure to read. I found this tragic and poignant as well as a wonderful mystery.

This is actually her first book in this series, but the last to be translated here. Seemed sort of funny to be reading a book where his grandson is a baby, after reading the series and seeing him grow up, that took a bit getting used to. But I have to say I really enjoyed this story, she spent alot of time on her characters and the reader can tell. It was not as dark, and abrupt as some of her later ones, but regardless the lady can write.

[In the Darkness: An Inspector Sejer Novel] is the first Fossum I have read. It certainly will not be the last. Several LT members have recommended her work. The story is really well written. You get a sense of Inspector Sejer and know that there will be more to come. He is relaxed and methodical. He takes in every detail and only weighs the importance after much thought. At one point in the story he scratches off someones name from the top of his list but writes it at the bottom. He will rule out nothing until he is absolutely sure. The small glimpses into his family life are sweet (his grandson) and a little sad (his difficulty coping with the loss of his wife.) He has a soft spot and a real way with children. The story itself surprised me. I haven't read any of her (Fossum) other work so I don't know if she is always really good with a turn of the plot. This story gets you started in one direction and turns you around a couple of times. Not hard shocking unbelievable turns. Instead it is peeling back another layer or looking at things from a new view. It changed the story completely but was still incredibly believable. I couldn't put the book down. I can see why she is the "Norwegian Queen of Crime". If all of her books are like this, exciting without being completely brutal then I will be a true fan.

Karin Fossum is often referred to as the "Norwegian Queen of Crime", and for me she is deserving of all the praise she gets. Fossum writes so beautifully, one critic described her style as "understated and deceptively simple". Her focus is more often on the effects of a crime, the fallout, the why, rather than on the how and the whodunit. 'In the Darkness' is the first is the Inspector Sejer series, and incredibly the last bar one to be translated into english (publ. 1995, tr. 2012). In this, artist Eva Magnus is walking by the river with her daughter when they see a body of a man, missing for some time, floating to the surface. His disappearance coincided with the murder of a prostitute, and both crimes remain unsolved. Can there be a link? Much of the story focuses on Eva and is told through her eyes. Typical of Fossum's works, and focused as it is on human nature, this is a story with a twist. I would have liked to see more of the character of Sejer, but that is only a minor criticism. If you read the follow ups in the series, and I know you will want to, you will learn more of him. I can't recommend Fossum and her books highly enough.

Why did I read it? Because it was by an author recommended in the Scandinavian and Nordic Crime Fiction reading group on another website, and it was on offer from Amazon's ARC programme.What's it a about? This is the first Inspector Sejer book by Karin Fossum set in a small town in Norway.Eva and her daughter, Emma, are out walking along the river when a body appears in the water. Eva appears to recognise the shoes on the body. She tells her daughter she will ring the police and drags her to a telephone box, but instead Eva calls another number before whisking Emma to McDonalds.The body turns out to be that of a man who has been missing for months, having disappeared around the same time a prostitute died, a crime which remains unsolved. Inspector Konrad Sejer investigates both, as it's unusual for two murders to occur in the town.What did I enjoy? The book, actually the story is tightly edited. There is no excessive anything; and it's sharp with a mystery so brilliantly conceived, I truly struggled to see the connections until the reveal.I particularly enjoyed Karin Fossum's layout of the story: the first part set in the present, then it travels back in time with a whole section revealing how events unfolded in one long narrative, before coming back to the present and tidying up. It was a great format, though it may not sound like it from my description. It really made the story flow, and provided a real sense of suspense as I struggled to see the connection between events past and present.Descriptions seem minimal, but everything that is needed for a good story is there. There is an absence of long, gory details about bodies, or murders, no autopsy, or long forensic scenes, which I found refreshing. The fact it is translated into English doesn't seem to have impacted on the style, or format at all. Only main characters are fully formed, the ones on the periphery remain a little blurred. I imagine these characters will be developed further as the series continues.What didn't I like? I can't think of anything I disliked about "In the Darkness".Would I recommend it? Yes. I'll definitely be reading more of Karin Fossum's book, especially in the Inspector Konrad Sejer series.I may have issued four stars, but it's closer to five. Why not five stars then? I didn't enjoy "In the Darkness" as much as I would have expected, given how well it's written and presented, but that it my own fault; I read "In the Darkness" over a long time period in between another crime fiction book. I feel had I sat down and read it over a shorter period, i.e. one sitting, and without another mystery to distract me, I would have appreciated it much more.

Karin Fossum is a well-established writer of crime fiction whose novels have been translated from their original Norwegian into more than 20 languages worldwide. She has won several awards and her Inspector Sejer series, of which this book is the first, has been published in more than thirty countries. (Although the second book in this series was published in England in 2002, and many others from the series have since made the transition, it has taken another ten years for the first to be published here.) This was not an author I had previously heard of but came highly recommended by my reading group.The premiseEva is walking by the river with her daughter when she sees a body floating on the surface. Assuring her daughter that she will call the police, Eva steps into the phone booth – and calls someone else entirely.Inspector Sejer quickly establishes that the dead man, Egil, suffered a violent death six months earlier – just a few days after a local prostitute was murdered. Could there be a connection? If so, what? In the months between these murders and the discovery of the body, both cases have gone cold.At home, Eva receives a phone call late at night. When the stranger hangs up, she stares fearfully into the dark night. Who called? Why? What does Eva know?My thoughtsI found the premise interesting, especially the idea of a detective having to pick up a ‘cold case’ and try to find new clues. It seemed obvious from the blurb that Eva knew more than her daughter did and I was looking forward to finding out exactly how much she knew.The first few pages are gripping. There is a brief piece of text in italics which works as a prologue and involves a woman running into a dead end. This obviously creates great suspense, especially as the man chasing her is so calm in comparison to the woman’s panic. This is followed by a very brief initial chapter in which Detective Sejer leads a bruised and bleeding Eva into an interview room. Again, I felt that this worked well to create suspense and I was keen to read on to find out what happened.Fossum is clearly more interested in the motives behind these crimes than in the detective work itself. Although Sejer does the necessary re-interviewing of witnesses, and in doing so manages to discover a new angle on the case, the real focus is on the personalities and feelings of the main characters. Eva is intense, burdened with secrets and surprisingly casual about her abandonment by her husband. Her father is lonely and struggles to eat more than porridge without company. Sejer lives a quiet life and occasionally visits his daughter and grandson. He seems to care a lot about the people he communicates with through his work and, in particular, is very kind to Egil’s son. Necessarily, this focus on thoughts and feelings rather than dramatic discoveries means that the pace is a little gentle, yet there are sufficient developments for the crime solving to seem suitably brisk. At this point I still found the story quite compelling.This initial pace is well maintained until around a third of the way through the book, when there is a dramatic shift in the focus of the narration and the reader finds out what actually happened six months ago. This is a slightly unusual and therefore perhaps risky approach for a crime writer to take. It becomes evident to the reader who committed the murders and the only question left becomes why. Gradually, most of the rest of the book answers that question and, in places, it almost becomes an exploration of the life of a prostitute. I was initially surprised by the rather positive spin placed on this ‘profession’, but this is soon undermined by subsequent events and Fossum does not ultimately endorse the career, even if her detective refuses to condemn it. I was not surprised to learn that Fossum has previously worked with addicts and other vulnerable people; she seems determined to explore the psychology of people who commit crimes, rather than simply condemning them. That said, there is a suitable smattering of villains here to keep the reader’s interest.During this section I didn’t feel the same urge to read on, as I thought I knew roughly why the murders had happened (I was right) and didn’t feel that interested in knowing the finer details. However, the narration continued to flow in a way that occasionally revealed surprises, and there was enough interest in the way the story was written to keep my interest. There are some tense and dramatic experiences along the way that help to keep suspense high.The ending is rather melancholy and contained an appropriate twist that I hadn’t foreseen but could completely believe in. I liked this as I felt that it made the ending stronger. As the story closes, Sejer is already beginning to work on his next case. Unusually, this does not seem to be intended as a whopping great cliffhanger for the reader to ensure that they buy the next book, but simply as a realistic way of ending this story; a detective will always have work to do. I think the realism was key to my enjoyment of this book, although ‘enjoy’ almost seems inappropriate: this is quite a dark story and no-one is redeemed.I was slightly surprised to discover that this was the first book in the series as Fossum does not spend a great deal of time establishing her detective. He has a dead wife, an old dog and spends his weekends at the Aerodrome. For this reason, I had assumed that I had picked up the series midway through. However, Fossum is on record as stating that her detective is really a necessity for the plot rather than necessarily important as a character in his own right. Again, I liked this approach. It means that the crime is the important element of the book, and the psychology of the other characters, and the plot is not overshadowed by the detective’s own life.Fossum is also a published poet and I felt that this has influenced her writing style, which feels very poetic and descriptive, in an understated way. Her characters are very reflective and there is some discussion of the purpose of art and the true meaning of selling oneself. This helped to make the book read more like a literary novel than a simple work of crime fiction and I quite enjoyed the way it was written.ConclusionsAlthough the book developed in a way that I hadn’t anticipated and became a why-dunnit rather than a who-dunnit, I quite enjoyed reading this and would be happy to read another book in the series. However, at 314 pages this is a reasonably quick read (the font is large and clear) which means that I would hesitate to pay the RRP of £12.99, especially as this is a paperback book (albeit a sturdy one) rather than a hardback. I felt that this worked well as a standalone book, which I liked, although this could partly be because it was the first in the series.Read this if:•You are a fan of Norwegian crime.•You enjoy a reflective writing style which focuses on characters’ thoughts and feelings rather than epic car chases or detailed analysis of forensic clues.•You like crime novels that focus on the criminals and their motivations rather than delving too deeply into the personal lives of the police officers involved in solving the crime.Avoid this if:•You like crime fiction with a lot of suspects and a lot of potential paths.•You like crime fiction that focuses very firmly on the crime solving rather than on the psyche of the villains and victims.•You want a main character you can develop a bond with and follow through a crime series to see them develop (although Sejer has his own series, in this book he is certainly a conduit for the action rather than a compelling character in his own right).