Customer Reviews

Bad Intentions

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(23)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Karin Fossum is my favorite Scandinavian crime novelist (I also like reading the works of Johan Theorin, Ake Edwardson, Arnaldur Indridason, etc.). Her novels have a way of delving into the psyche of individuals and exposing people's innermost thoughts, desires, and flaws. Her writing style is minimalistic yet she is credibly able to convey complex characters and plots that engage the reader.

"Bad Intentions" is another novel in the Insp Sejer series. Insp Sejer is one of my favorite characters in crime fiction - a meticulous and astute policeman, he is always able to sense something amiss as he pieces the clues of a crime together in order to solve it. Sejer is a multi-faceted character which makes reading about him even more interesting, especially as readers familiar with his character are able to see him evolve as the series progresses.

The story is about friends, Axel and Reilly who have picked up their friend Jon for a trip to a remote cabin, presumably to lift their friend Jon's spirits (Jon is a very troubled young man). The trio row out on Dead Water Lake and a terrible tragedy ensues. Jon dies, and the other two try to cover things up by delaying reporting the incident to the police. When Insp Sejer and his assistant Jacob Skarre (another of my favorite characters in crime fiction) arrive at the scene, they immediately sense something amiss, even though the two young men appear to have colluded to get their stories straight. Yet with no other witnesses or clues, the case is hard to solve until the body of a teenage boy is found several weeks later in a nearby lake.

Like the other novels in the Sejer series, this is a deeply psychological novel, which probes the human conscience, and also touches on friendship and what happens when trust gives way to distrust and paranoia. Most of the Sejer novels take readers into the dark recesses of human minds, explore human frailties, and make us question our own beliefs and assumptions. This is a compelling and rewarding read.

Fossum's a wonderful writer. Her characters, even the most minor one, are always fully developed human beings, and her settings and events are so well-drawn that you feel you know the places and participate in the happenings and discoveries.

Bad Intentions is excellent Fossum, as usual; but it's narrower than her other books, focusing on the three main characters almost exclusively. It's a lean, spare book, beautifully executed. That makes it a quick read -- memorable, but quick. I'd like to give it more stars, but it went so fast, I was left still hungry.

The writers that publishers choose to comment on and extol their new books on the books' front and back covers tell us something about the new book. Houghton chose Ruth Rendell for this "Inspector Sejer Mystery." She wrote "I always await a new novel from Karin Fossum." Rendell is known for writing two kinds of novels, detective mysteries and psychological thrillers. Although Inspector Sejer does try to unravel this case, his appearances in the novel and his contributions to the resolution are minimal. This book falls into the psychological thriller type. This observation is not a detraction of its merits. The book is very interesting. Furthermore, readers shouldn't be put off by it being a psychological thriller. Fossum describes the behavior of several people, but she doesn't delve that deep to annoy readers. She delves deep enough to tantalize her readers.

What happened? A young man is found drowned. His two friends say that he wandered away from their cabin, where they had gone for a week-end rest, and apparently committed suicide. They claim he was upset about something, but don't know what. The youth had a nervous breakdown some weeks past and had been in an institution.

There statements don't ring true. The youth's doctor states emphatically that he was not suicidal. He had developed a close friendship with a very clever outspoken female inmate and enjoyed being with her. The female also assures Sejer that he was happy with her. True, he was bothered. He had a guilty conscience about something. Neither she nor the doctor knew what it was. Inspector Sejer feels that the two youths with whom he was spending time were involved in his death. But forensics is unable to find a criminal cause of his death. All they knew is that he drowned.

The three youths have different personalities. The dead man was very passive. One is very aggressive, intelligent, and continues to remind people that he can control others, what they think and what they do. The third is weak. He uses drugs. He needs a kitten to hug and put him at ease. He is clearly bothered by something. Is it the same thing that bothered the drowned youth? Soon another dead youth is found. He has lain in the water for quite a few months. Is there a connection?

Readers will enjoy this drama and see how the two young men act. Fossum does not reveal what happened until near the end of her book and creates beguiling suspense.

Karin Fossum's "Bad Intensions" is about three friends, now in their twenties, who have known each other since they were six. On the surface, Axel Frimann is by far the most successful. He is well-spoken, good-looking, and nicely dressed; his job at an advertising agency pays well. Philip Reilly, on the other hand, is disheveled, has long, stringy hair ("he looked like a troll from a fairy tale"), and spends a portion of his small salary as a hospital porter getting high. The third member of the trio is Jon Moreno. As the story opens, Jon is with his two buddies at a cabin near a lake ominously called "Dead Water." Reilly and Frimann have taken Jon out of the hospital ward where he is being treated for depression and anxiety; the doctors hope that the change of scenery will further Jon's recovery.

The three men share a dark secret, one that would land them in deep trouble if it came to light. Their transgression preys on Reilly and Moreno, while Frimann's chief concern is how to keep his pals from revealing what they know. Fossum is keenly aware that, in certain circumstances, ordinary men and women are capable of committing illegal and/or immoral acts. While some people rationalize their actions and blithely carry on with their lives, others are tormented by feelings of remorse. The latter can escape their emotional prison only when they unburden themselves and try to atone.

Inspector Konrad Sejer and Jakob Skarre are called in when one of the three men disappears. Sejer interviews the victim's family and acquaintances, but he has no hard evidence that could lead to an arrest. He thinks, "I've developed a profound skepticism and it follows me everywhere. I don't trust anyone." When another body turns up, Sejer's suspicions deepen, and soon matters come to a head. Karin Fossum demonstrates that justice comes in many forms and is often meted out in unusual ways. In addition, she poignantly touches on how two grieving mothers find a measure of consolation after they lose their beloved children. "Bad Intentions," translated capably from the Norwegian by Charlotte Barslund, is a subtle and heartbreaking tale of psychological suspense in which Fossum explores not only the nature of good and evil, but also the power of guilt to destroy a person from within.

Karin Fossum is new to me author and another Nordic author who has made her name known in North America.

Bad Intentions is the ninth offering in her Inspector Konrad Sejer series. The book opens with three friends spending a weekend at a cabin. Their interactions seem odd and tainted by an alluded to event in the past. The weekend ends with one of them dead. Inspector Sejer and his partner Inspector Jakob Skarre are called in. The victim Jon Moreno had been hospitalized for depression and was out on a weekend pass with his friends. The friends insist he must have been suicidal, but Jon's new girlfriend doesn't agree.

I found Fossum's writing to be very stark, spare and almost bleak. Not in a bad way though. It was just a very different take on a crime novel. There weren't long graphic descriptions of the crime. Instead Fossum focuses on the characters, their inner thoughts and psyches, and she does it very, very well. The thought processes of the two friends left alive are the quite frightening part of this book. The event in the past that has affected the lives of these three young men is slowly revealed - I was eager to see what it was.

I appreciated the banter between Sejer and Skarre, but felt I didn't really come to know them in this slim novel. They are protagonists I would like to know better - I would pick up another book by Karin Fossum without hesitation.

This was my first Karin Fossum mystery. I was surprised in many ways because it had the tension, the need to see what happens next, however, by the end I was disappointed. Why? Because it wasn't a mystery at all, just a very sad story. While the three main characters were developed well and the writing smooth and engaging, my end reaction was, "all this prelude for that?"
I will try another Fossum before deciding if she is to tame for my tastes.

A warning for all Karin Fossum followers: "Bad Intentions"--not for the squeamish. But the writing, as always, is riveting and pulse-pounding. As are Fossum's characterizations of people.

In her newest, brief novel, Fossum catches her readers off guard with her dangerously delicious approach to the dark side of the human mind. Three troubled boys: Jon, Reilly and Axel, fighting against demons from their past, must come to terms with their too-quick actions of a recent unsettling crime, which hits too close to home. Haunted by their own reproach, each of the parties will have to face reality, its consequences, and the dark, brutal road that lies ahead for each of them.

The lack of Inspector Sejer Konrad and his counterpart, Jacob Skarre, may be off-putting for a few avid readers of the series, considering both detectives' minor roles in the book. But Fossum stated earlier in her career that her stories deal with the 'why' instead of the 'who' of the crime, and in no way should her books be labeled a 'whodunit'. Instead, they are psychological interpretations of the human psyche and how tortured, disturbed people think the way they do, and the outcomes of their deadly and, often times, unwarranted actions.

In Bad Intentions, minor characters, like the boys' grieving mothers or Jon, Axel and Reilly's female friends, may not get enough page time or a larger light in which shine, but those characters and their situations are minor in themselves. They are not Fossum's center focus. Their purpose, however small, illuminates enough of the reader's mind as to why they are present in the novel in the first place. Fossum succeeds in doing what she does best: telling a story.

And like "The Water's Edge", Bad Intentions is told in a brevity of words. However, the story is richer and more complex than previous outings. The novel has a sense of a growing restlessness and a cold-war chill on every page, as Fossum delivers the goods in every menacing chapter. Even so, a few of the characters will stay with you after you finish the book, close it, and set it back on the shelf.

Another important observation: Being compared to author, Steig Larsson, Fossum may be another Norwegian author, but her writing style and approach to the psychological novel is in a class of its own. Taut. Haunting. Disturbing. And yet, the beautiful but dark images adhere to you and linger in the air well after the last page.

In the latest novel, most readers would have preferred to read an extra one hundred pages of the detectives' lives, but the 213 pages inside Bad Intentions is rightly justified. A short, indicative tale with a meaty punch.

T.B. Grant
8/21/11

Another winner for Scandinavian author Karin Fossum! I read "Bad Intentions" in 24 hours ( would have been quicker if my job didn't get in the way). There is a figure of speech, "dark deeds cast long shadows"...and this book illustrates that perfectly. Three young men share a secret...and then there are only two as the body of the third boy is reported as a suicide. It is up to Inspector Sejer to look beneath the surface appearance to the truth. Highly recommend.

Shorter than some of the other efforts by Karin Fossum, but still very good. Not quite as much of a twist as some other plots, but interesting none the less.

If the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, where do bad intentions take us? And what about lack of intention?

The book opens with three young man camping by a lake, ominously known as Dead Water. Jon is on leave from a psychiatric hospital and showing signs of acute anxiety. Reilly is keeping himself level with drugs. Axel is calm and in control. Something terrible will happen before the night is over.

The incident, which looks like suicide, falls to Inspector Konrad Sejer to investigate. Slowly but surely he uncovers unpleasant depths to the friendship among the three men. But there's nothing very startling about the police work. Sejer comes across as thoughtful and thorough rather than brilliant. To my mind the book is more a psychological thriller than a detective story.

The real interest is in the personalities of the three friends and the role of will or intention in connection with crime. A reader who likes to ponder ethical questions or the workings of karma might appreciate the moral subtleties of this novel.

The simplicity of the storyline may not appeal to everyone, but the simple unfolding of facts, suspicions and connections supports the realism of the book. And there's an ironic twist at the end that I especially liked.

All in all, I enjoyed Bad Intentions and found it to have a certain quiet power.