Gumshoe Award–winner Fossum (When the Devil Holds the Candle
) once again wraps a blanket of methodical police work and infectious psychological tension around a relatively quiet crime in her fifth Inspector Sejer mystery to be made available in the U.S. When nine-year-old Ida Joner takes off for town (never named) on her new bike one afternoon and is never seen again, suspicion falls on Emil Johannes Mork, a silent, simple man. Emil, however, doesn’t appear to have the heart of a killer. The narrative shifts smoothly among those affected by the tragedy: Emil’s beleaguered mother, a good woman with little life of her own; a male cousin of the missing girl who may suffer some secret guilt; and, of course, Insp. Konrad Sejer and his younger colleague, Jacob Skarre. Sejer is a beautifully created character, a thoughtful, lonely man with great empathy. As he investigates Ida’s disappearance, it’s not so much the facts of the case as the impact of it on the people who surrounded the girl that fuel the story. (July)
