In The Darkness – Karin Fossum

When Eva Magnus, out with her young daughter, finds a body of a man in the river she pretends to phone the police from a call box then calmly walks away from the scene. In time another woman reports the find and Inspector Sejer is called in to investigate.  The dead man, a car mechanic, has been missing for a while, and clearly died a violent death so now the missing persons case becomes a murder hunt.

That makes two for Sejer to solve. The victim disappeared shortly after a local prostitute was killed; a coincidence or a connection? As Sejer works through the evidence will he discover the reasons for Eva’s reluctance to get involved?  No spoilers here, so suffice it to say the outcome is played out in the gritty town and dramatic countryside of the book’s Norwegian setting.

I felt the two main narratives – Sejer’s methodical police procedural and Eva’s increasingly frantic activities – though naturally contrasting could have combined better than they did; but both were enjoyable on their own terms.

This is the first in the translated Inspector Sejer series and given the stiff competition in the detective fiction genre it may be a while before I sample the second.

A Man Called Ove – Fredrik Backman

Ove often discusses the daily trials and tribulations of life with his wife, even though she has been dead for six months. And now he has been ‘let go’ from his job so only one of his three purposes in life remains – keeping order in the residential development in which he has lived all his adult life.

That is a full time job in itself with folk parking in the wrong place, letting dogs urinate uncontrollably, and leaning bikes against the signpost saying ‘no bicycles to be left here’. When new neighbours announce their arrival by reversing their trailer into his garden wall, Ove decides enough is enough and the sooner he joins his dead wife the better.

He’s a methodical man, a practical man, so proper preparations need to be made; but sequential interruptions by strangers, cats, children and particularly his new neighbour Parvaneh continually distract him and draw him into an unfamiliar world of social interaction.

Backman’s portrayal of the archetypical grumpy old man is spot on (all too recognisable to this critic) providing much humour, occasional pathos, and an entertaining take on the fundamental question in life for the Scandinavian male – whether to drive a Saab or a Volvo?

                               

More seriously, as Ove’s past is uncovered it reveals him as more than a stereotype. As a result the reader gains a greater emotional stake in his future, which makes this more than just a blackly humorous comic novel.