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World Hotels - Black Seconds (Inspector Sejer Mysteries)
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List Price: $24.00
Our Price: $16.32
Your Save: $ 7.68 ( 32% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 839.8238
EAN: 9780151015276
ISBN: 0151015279
Label: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Manufacturer: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 272
Publication Date: 2008-06-01
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Studio: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
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Editorial Reviews:
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Ida Joner gets on her brand-new bike and sets off toward town. A good-natured, happy girl, she is looking forward to her tenth birthday. Thirty-five minutes after Ida should have come home, her mother starts to worry. She phones store owners, Ida’s friends—anyone who could have seen her. But no one has. Suspicion immediately falls on Emil Mork, a local character who lives alone and hasn’t spoken since childhood. His mother insists on cleaning his house weekly—although she’s sometimes afraid of what she might find there. A mother’s worst nightmare in either case—to lose a child or to think a child capable of murder. As Ida’s relatives reach the breaking point and the media frenzy surrounding the case begins, Inspector Konrad Sejer is his usual calm and reassuring self. But he’s puzzled. And disturbed. This is the strangest case he’s seen in years.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Black Seconds
Comment: Karin Fossum is a remarkable writer, and "Black Seconds" is a very powerful -- yet subtle -- novel. I don't think you could find a truer example of the genre -- there is not a single false note here.
I read this book just after reading a Ruth Rendell book, and the two authors share the ability to turn what could be merely genre novels into literature. I think Fossum and Rendell write very differently than most of the male mystery writers I admire (George Pelecanos, for example).
This book is a page-turner, but so much more than that. The characters are very human -- each is different but each is real. This book has so many small touches that add up to a whole that is much greater than the sum of its parts.
Fossum must be a dog lover, because there are several very moving scenes involving dogs -- none really significant in terms of plot, but each with real emotional power.
All Fossum's books are very good -- but I think this may be her best. Inspector Sejer is a fascinating character -- a unique policeman and a unique man, at least in my experience. He is quieter in this book, more introspective -- perhaps what separates him from most fictional detectives is his empathy for both the victims and the perpetrators.
Fossum's imagination and her insight into the human condition are very impressive.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Excellent
Comment: I am only 80 pages into the book but the way Fossum presents the story is intriguing and I cannot wait to read the rest of the book.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Heart-tugging tragedy
Comment: The mystery element definitely takes second place to the emotional impact of this book. Any reader who's on his or her toes will have the mystery figured out by the halfway point. However, the concern for the characters involved.It's difficult to hint at very much of the story without revealing too mucch, so suffice to say that this concerns a missing child whose dead body is eventually found. So you can be assured that this story is no frolic. It does have heart and it sure stirs the emotions. One can call it more psychological suspense than mystery, since once the reader has figued out just what has happened, one then becomes concerned about the characters involved.One sidenote here. I know nothing about parrots, but an African Grey is a part of the story and I rather enjoyed the information injected here as I shortly after read the non-ficrtion ALEX & ME. And I also noticed the sharp difference between the interrogation scenes in this Norwegian novel and that of the same scenes in modern American novels. The bottom line for me is that this is the first Inspector Sejer novel I've read, but it won't be the last..
Customer Rating:
Summary: Black Seconds
Comment: Just nine days shy of her eleventh birthday, Ida Joner leaves her home in Southern Norway one afternoon on an errand, promising her ever-vigilant mother, Helga, to return promptly. The title derives from the time immediately after Helga becomes aware that her daughter is inordinately late: "She had always thought of seconds as tiny metallic dots; now they turned into heavy black drops and she felt them fall one by one."
As the ensuing hours and then days pass, everyone is questioned: Ida's father and his brothers and their sons, and Helga's sister, Ruth, and Ruth's 12-year-old daughter and 18-year-old son, who seems preoccupied with a minor accident which has damaged his precious car - he's just recently passed his driving test. Then there is a rather gruff and strange man: Emil Johannes Mork, who doesn't seem to be able to talk other than to say the word "No" and drive about in a three-wheeled vehicle with motorcycle handlebars and a small trailer attached. [Though fifty-two years old, Emil's seventy-three-year-old mother comes to his house weekly to keep it clean and tidy.] No one can be found who saw Ida from the time she left her home.
The case is assigned to Inspector Konrad Sejer, the protagonist of this series. A very tall, gray-haired man in his fifties, he inspires confidence. "He moved quietly and thoughtfully, as if nothing in the world could unsettle him, Helga thought, He's exactly what I need. He'll fix this, because that's his job, he's done this before." But this, he thinks, is a case unlike any he's ever had. Sejer is a wonderful protagonist. A widower, he has a grown daughter presently in the US, and a very old, beloved dog who he dreads having to put down, though he knows this is what he will shortly have to do, as every movement is a trial for the animal.
The book describes a mother's worst nightmare - to lose a child, or to think a child capable of murder - either one impossible to imagine. A fast read, "Black Seconds" is a fine mystery, as well as a psychological study of the highest order.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Hard to Find a Better Mystery
Comment: When I read this book's predecessor, "The Indian Bride" (which had gotten so many good reviews around the US), I thought Ms. Fossum had put out one of the best mysteries I'd read in 20+ years. I see now that I was mistaken. "The Indian Bride" was only a warm-up for "Black Seconds."
Wow. I truly cannot imagine a better mystery. Characters are tightly drawn, the plot moves along perfectly (at least, in such a manner that you'll likely end up staying up all night to read this book), and, of course, the setting is sketched out with just the right amount of detail. Not a wasted word or sentence in this book.
If you like mysteries, if you like really good stories, and you don't mind picking up the kind of book that you'll find difficult to put down until the end, this is the book for you. Don't waste your time reading any more reviews - buy it, read it, enjoy it and join the rest of us waiting for Ms. Fossum's next book.
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