The Indian bride

Review by New York Times Review

"HELP me run away." Those words, encountered in a new thriller by Thomas Perry, are enough to make any attentive reader swoon. Perry is the grand poobah of the running-away narrative, with its trapdoor escape mechanisms, elaborate chase sequences and unsettling identity issues, and he's at the top of his cat-and-mouse game in SILENCE (Harcourt, $25). Jack Till, a Los Angeles private eye with a knack for hiding people in trouble, once gave a crash course in the requisite survival skills to Wendy Harper, the co-owner of a trendy restaurant who was murderously assaulted after she tried to investigate the disappearance of a popular waitress with a sinister admirer. "I told her the methods professionals might use to find her" is Till's modest recollection of the tutorial he gave the traumatized restaurateur. "And then I taught her ways to avoid those methods." That's the last Till hears of Wendy until six years later, when the district attorney's office arrests Eric Fuller, her onetime business partner and the celebrity chef at the restaurant, for her presumed murder. Although Till suspects the homicide charge is just a gambit to flush out Wendy, engineered by someone who still considers her a threat, he feels ethically bound to invade his former pupil's new life - if he can reach her before her would-be assassins. Thomas Perry The clever procedures Perry devises for this quest - which quickly escalate from standard computer searches into a series of highway chases at once dazzling and dizzying, especially for the punishing mistreatment of countless innocent rental cars - would be a treat to follow under any circumstances. But Perry's inventiveness isn't limited to the situational mechanics of the plot, and his complex characters, including a pair of insanely appealing villains, are all the more attractive for being so devious and untrustworthy. Paul and Sylvie Turner, the husband-and-wife contract killers hired to make sure Wendy doesn't get a chance to identify the person she saw manhandling that waitress, are inspired creations. Tall, lithe and emotionally bloodless, they enjoy having sex, dancing the tango and killing people, and are exceedingly adept at all these activities. As satanic foils for Till and Wendy, they keep up the maniacal pace in this deadly game - and manage to show those straight shooters a thing or two about maintaining a high style. In her latest solemnly perceptive mystery, THE INDIAN BRIDE (Harcourt, $23), Karin Possum continues her exploration of the way violent crime can crack open the unwritten laws and social taboos of rural Norway. Like his neighbors in the tiny farming community of Elvestad, Gunder Jomann keeps his private affairs to himself; but when this decent and dependable fellow decides it's time to marry, he reveals his secret romantic side by flying to India to find a wife he can cherish. (In his experience, "Norwegian women didn't want to be adored.") Although his brave heart wins Gunder a fair lady, she is lost forever - savagely beaten to death in a meadow just outside town - when an emergency keeps him from meeting her plane. Inspector Konrad Sejer's calm, contemplative manner reflects his dual functions in this series as both a detective and an unofficial psychologist. He understands the howling grief behind Gunder's numbed disbelief (all the more devastating in the unadorned idiom of Charlotte Barslund's translation), but it takes more subtle thought to interpret a cafe owner's surliness or a schoolgirl's eagerness to be a murder witness. What it takes is a writer like Fossum, able to see into the soul of an entire village. Being a tough private eye is no summer sail across the bay. Genre conventions demand that the hero be randomly beaten up by thugs, irrationally hounded by cops and betrayed by transparently untrustworthy women. Michael Koryta writes himself into these and other corners in A WELCOME GRAVE (St. Martin's Minotaur, $23.95), his third novel to feature Lincoln Perry, a licensed P.I. who lives above the gym he owns in downtown Cleveland. There's a noir opaqueness to Perry's latest case, which has him working for an ex-fiancée now married to a powerful lawyer who has just been found tortured to death, a fate the lawyer's son has avoided by shooting himself in the mouth. While Koryta doesn't bring a whole lot of originality to the sadomasochistic plot, he writes chunks of stylish prose about characters so well observed that they could step right out of this cheesy story and slip into something more comfortable. Every historical mystery tries to home in on the ideal setting at the perfect moment in time. Anthony Flacco succeeds on both counts in his first novel, THE LAST NIGHTINGALE (Ballantine, paper, $12.95), which opens on April 18, 1906, at 5:12 a.m. - the exact second of the first shock wave of the great San Francisco earthquake. The heaving streets, the burning buildings, the screams of the victims: Flacco imagines the chaos in precise and vivid detail while contributing his own distinctive narrative touch. It seems the quake has provided cover for a serial killer, and while the city struggles to save itself, 12-year-old Shane Nightingale is more intent on finding the madman, who murdered his family. Once Shane crosses paths with Sgt. Randall Blackburn, who has also made it his business to catch the killer known as "the Surgeon," man and boy discover that they make an unorthodox but efficient team. And who knows - once they overcome fire, pestilence, lawlessness and the other legacies of the earthquake to vanquish this monster, there could be more work for such a dynamic duo. The private eye hero of Thomas Perry's latest thriller once helped a woman disappear - but now he has to find her.

Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [October 27, 2009]

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Review by Booklist Review

"*Starred Review* Over the course of a few days, Norwegian bachelor Gunder Jomann experiences both euphoria and utter despair. In India, he meets and marries Poona, the woman of his dreams. He returns to his tiny village of Elvestad, with his new bride scheduled to arrive in a matter of weeks. A family emergency delays Gunder on the day Poona arrives. Tragedy ensues before they can reconnect; she is found brutally murdered less than a mile from her new husband's house. Who in tranquil Elvestad could commit such a heinous act? Shy, contemplative Chief Inspector Konrad Sejer knows that evil lurks deep within even the most seemingly innocent souls. With his baby-faced partner, Jacob Skarre, he methodically follows but a handful of clues. As time passes, the list of suspicious characters grows. There's muscle-bound Goran, whose affable manner belies his might; local café owner Einar, who harbors a general dislike for humankind; and Linda, an attention-starved teenager who dispenses half-truths and lies. This fourth in the Inspector Sejer series showcases the crisp prose and unsettling scenarios that have made Fossum (When the Devil Holds the Candle, 2006) one of Europe's most successful crime novelists. Like a Scandinavian winter, this potent psychological thriller chills right to the bone."--"Block, Allison" Copyright 2007 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Fossum may not be well-known outside a select circle, but that could change with the publication of this outstanding contemporary police procedural, the fourth Inspector Sejer mystery to be translated into English (after 2006's He Who Fears the Wolf). Insp. Konrad Sejer is faced with a baffling crime when the battered body of a woman surfaces in a field outside the town of Elvestad. She's soon identified as Poona Jomann, the new wife of Gunder Jomann, who traveled to India in search of a life partner. Gunder's sister's injury in an auto accident kept him from meeting his bride at the airport, leaving her to travel to their new home alone, a journey that ended in murder. With a skill few can equal, Fossum deftly paints the provincial inhabitants of Elvestad, coupling those poignant word portraits with a whodunit and an insightful but fallible detective. The ending is not one most readers will expect, but it perfectly suits the tale of sad, little lives and the tragic consequences of chance. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

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Review by Library Journal Review

In this fifth U.S. release, an Indian bride may have ended up dead in the town of Elvestad, and the Inspector knows that no one is innocent. Fossum lives in Norway. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

Inspector Konrad Sejer closes the book on a love story that began with unlikely romance and ended with horrific violence. No one ever thought Gunder Jomann would get married. But two weeks after he arrived in Mumbai, he returned to the Norwegian village of Elvestad to make arrangements for the arrival of Poona Bai Jomann, the waitress he'd courted and married. The autumnal romance of this na™ve, sturdy farm-equipment salesman is so touching that fans of the series who expect tragedy will be quailing even before Gunder gets the shocking news that his sister Marie is lying comatose after a car crash. Dashing to the side of her hospital bed, he asks minicab driver Kalle Moe to pick up an Indian visitor--all right, his bride--at the airport and then sinks into ever deeper misery when Kalle can find no sign of her anywhere and the news media report the murder of a mystery woman who's been savagely beaten to death less than a mile from Gunder's home. In her own version of the two-part structure of Law & Order, Fossum first shows Sejer and Company (When the Devil Holds the Candle, 2006, etc.) hunting for a suspect, then focuses on the problems that arise once they have one in custody. The most traditional of Sejer's four translated cases leaves plenty of room for resonant ambiguities that are still proliferating as the net finally closes. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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Chapter 1 The silence is shattered by the barking of a dog. The mother looks up from the sink and stares out of the window. The barking comes from deep in the dogs throat. All of its black, muscular body quivers with excitement. Then she sees her son. He gets out of the red Golf and lets a blue bag fall to the ground. He glances toward the window, registering the faint outline of his mother. He goes to the dog and releases it from its chain. The animal throws itself at him. They roll on the ground, sending the dirt flying. The dog growls and her son shouts affectionate curses in its ears. Sometimes he yells at the top of his lungs and smacks the Rottweiler hard across its snout. At last it stays down. Slowly he gets to his feet. Brushes the dust and dirt from his pants. Glances once more at the window. The dog gets up hesitantly and cowers in front of him, its head down, until he allows it to come and lick the corners of his mouth, submissively. Then he walks to the house and comes into the kitchen. Good God, look at the state of you! The blue T-shirt is bloodstained. His hands are covered in cuts. The dog has scratched his face, too. Never seen anything like it, she says and sniffs angrily. Leave the bag. Im doing a load of laundry later. He folds his scratched arms across his chest. They are powerful, like the rest of him. Close to two hundred pounds and not a hint of fat. The muscles have just been used and they are warm. Calm down, he tells her. Ill do it. She cant believe her ears. Him, wash his own clothes? Where have you been? she says. Surely you dont work out from six to eleven? Her son mumbles something. He has his back to her. With Ulla. We were babysitting. She looks at the broad back. His hair is very blond and stands upright like a brush. Thin stripes have been dyed scarlet. Its as if he were on fire. He disappears down the basement stairs. She hears the old washing machine start up. She lets the water out of the sink and stares into the yard. The dog has lain down with its head on its paws. The last remnant of light is disappearing. Her son is back, says hes going to take a shower. A shower at this hour? Youve just come from the gym? He doesnt reply. Later she hears him in the bathroom, sounding hollow in the tiled space. Hes singing. The door to the medicine cupboard slams. Hes probably looking for a bandage, silly boy. His mother smiles. All of this violence is only to be expected. He is a man, after all. Later, she would never forget this. The last moment when life was good. It began with Gunder Jomanns journey. Gunder went all the way to India to find himself a wife. When people asked, he did not say that that was why he had gone. He hardly admitted it to himself. It was a journey to see a bit of the world, he explained when his colleagues asked. What an outrageous extravagance! He never spent anything on himself. Hardly ever went out, never accepted invitations to Christmas parties, kept himself busy either wi Excerpted from The Indian Bride by Karin Fossum All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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