The most depressing and grim of Fossum's books so far. She's such a clever story teller and does so with the sparsest of prose. ( )

When the Devil Holds the Candle by Karin Fossum is the third book in her Inspector Konrad Sejer series to be published in North America. The story follows a couple of young men who are looking for adventure and the money to fund it. There is an incident where they try to rob a young mother and then later Andreas and his friend Zipp decide to follow an older woman through the dark streets and then break into her home. Andreas is the one to enter the house while Zipp waits in the dark back yard. But Andreas never comes out.

The author builds the tension slowly over the course of the book, and by the final third of the story, the pages were turning quickly. Each character in the book is skilfully developed and all appear to be hiding secrets. This is a tense, psychological thriller where the police are mostly sidelined till the end of the book and while the conclusion was very dark and very chilling it was all too believable. Every book in this series is better than the one that went before it and Karin Fossum has become an author that I know I can totally rely on to deliver a superb story. ( )

3.5 stars

Fossum's When the Devil Holds the Candle caught me with its psychological approach to crime and punishment: the reader knows who's guilty, and it's lots of fun watching the perpetrators react to what they've done.

(There's more on my blog here.) ( )

Review: When The Devil Holds The Candleby Karin Fossum.

The author sets out with a fresh approach to police procedurals where she gives the reader the facts of the crimes quite early in the book. The journey she starts the reader on is discovering the twists of history and the fate that put the main characters into a conflict collision with each other. The story also has an insightful interpretation along a narrow boundary between youth criminal behavior, and isolation to insanity.

A handsome young, self controlled eighteen-year-old boy has disappeared. His mother, Irma is sick with worry and contacts the police. Andreas works everyday and is an outstanding boy. He has a best friend, Zipp, he hangs around with and he might sometimes do “uncalled boy things that some do” but he’s never been in trouble. Fossum allows the reader to know where Andreas is amid the narration of the police investigation. What keeps the reader captured is not the mystery it’s the anguish and bewilderment of the characters.

The action begins when Andreas and Zipp unplanned purse snatching leads them to dreadful consequences… ( )

I forgot that I had previously read one of this series and I felt that perhaps something had been lost in the translation. This one is no different. I know someone, somewhere will like it or just love it but sorry, it isn't me. ( )