Bad Intentions (Inspector Sejer Mysteries)

Bad Intentions by Karin Fossum

The latest Sejer and Skarre novel by Karin Fossum begins with the death of a troubled young man out with his friends, but soon becomes more complicated as the Swedish detectives unravel the details of the young man’s last remaining months and the shame and guilt

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that forced him to spiral downward to depression and self destruction.

Like other Scandinavian novelists, Fossum takes full advantage of the bleak winter landscape to add to the atmosphere of her novels. Sejer and Skarre are however, fully realized characters whose meticulous investigations compare with the best and most detailed police procedurals. The novel attempts to be more psychological than purely detective and compared to masters like Ruth Rendell and Minette Walters, the third person narrative felt more anecdotal than fully developed.

Fossum is the author of the brilliant Indian Bride, which better showcases her talents for character depth and detective fiction

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Seventh in the series, Inspector Sejer and his sidekick Skarre are investigating the drowning death of a man on leave from a mental hospital. Though it appears to be a suicide, there are some details of the scenario that don't make sense. The reader knows far more than the police do, since the

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relationship between the dead man and his two friends takes up the foreground of the book. Axel is the dominant one, obsessed with having power over others. Reilly is a drug-addled slacker who has known the other since childhood. The three of them had covered up a secret and, after the one dies, the remaining pair are once again practicing their alibis. Fossum is, as usual, making acute psychological observations about a hardly remarkable crime made by very ordinary people and turning it into a good story, proving that crime fiction can be both realistic and absorbing. That said, this is not the strongest novel in the series. At times the translation is intrusive, and the characters are unevenly realized.

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Once they were just little kids with skinny legs and pointy knees. How did they become so evil?

Any second now Axel’s green Mercedes will appear around the bend. While he waits, he chews his nails. He has bitten them right down. The tips of his fingers are red and sore. He thinks about everything

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that has happened and about how he is going to move on. He knows he has to make a choice…. But sometimes we need to face reality. And perhaps that is not fair, but nothing about this situation is fair. It’s best to keep my mouth shut, he thinks, I’m protecting Axel and Reilly. They are my friends, and we’re in this together for ever.

Despite the fact that it is #7 in Fossum's Inspector Sejer series this is not a police procedural. It is rather a melancholic exploration of the way guilt can tunnel its way through the minds of those who feel it. Jon is the first to break and from then on the slippery slide is inevitable for the others. Who will crack next? And did they actually commit a crime?

Sejer and his colleague Skarre seem almost to take a backseat in this novel, observers and prompters to the final undoing:

He sat listening to the hum of the police station. He liked being a part of a big engine. He liked interrogating people, he liked spotting the lie when it came. A lie had its own pitch, and over many years he had learned to recognize it. He liked the moment when the confession finally spilled out, when all the cards were on the table and the course of events could be mapped and filed.

The story is an exploration too of how sometimes the victims of crime can unexpectedly become allies who force the truth to come out.
There is so much to think about in BAD INTENTIONS and it really came up to my expectations.

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Another good story with plenty of atmosphere from Karin Fossum.

"Bad Intentions" is the seventh crime novel in Karin Fossum's Inspector Sejer series. I cannot claim to have read all seven of the novels, but the three I have read so far certainly encourage me to seek out the rest of the series. The books, all of which are set in Norway, are psychological crime

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novels in which character development and motivation are every bit as important as plot and action. Those enjoying this type of crime fiction will do well to seek out the work of Karin Fossum.

Alex, Reilly and Jon have been a trio since they were youngsters. Now that they are young men, Jon is so troubled that he has been confined to a mental health facility for treatment. Alex and Reilly, hoping to ease their friend's mind, get permission to bring him with them for a weekend's outing on remote Dead Water Lake. When tragedy strikes in the middle of the night, and one of the boys drowns in the lake, the other two wait until morning to report the accident.

Inspector Sejer, filtering the story about their friend's supposed suicide through his years of experience, senses that something is wrong. Things do not quite add up, but there is little he can do to disprove what Alex and Reilly insist happened that night - until the body of another teen associated with Alex, Reilly and Jon floats to the surface.

As Sejer and his assistant, Jacob Skarre, begin to tighten the screws on Alex and Reilly, their best hope is that one of the two will crack long enough to reveal what really happened to the two dead men. Meanwhile, Fossum carries the reader deep into the minds of several secondary characters that have an interest in the outcome of Sejer's investigation.

The mothers of the two victims form an unlikely friendship, based at first on nothing but their shared mourning, that surprises both of them with its intensity. The women see their sons as innocent victims of a world gone mad - but only one of them is right about the innocent part. Both of them, however, are determined to learn the truth about their sons' last hours.

At the heart of the story is the relationship of Alex and Reilly, a relationship poisoned forever by the loss of Jon. Alex has always called the shots with Reilly and Jon, and he will tolerate no resistance from Reilly now, just when the wrong move can send both of them to prison for the rest of their lives. What really happened on the most important two nights in the lives of four young men is slowly revealed as Fossum allows Alex and Reilly to reveal themselves.

Karin Fossum writes rather sparingly (the book is less than 200 pages in length) but she creates such memorable characters, on both sides of the crime equation, that her novels remain with the reader long after the last page is turned.

Rated at: 4.0

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Fossum manages to cover alot of ground in a short amount of pages. Intersting psychological story about three frieds who make a serious mistake which haunts them in varying degrees. Love these nordic mysteries.

Karin Fossum is new to me author and another Nordic author who has made her name known in North America.

Bad Intentions is the ninth offering in her Inspector Konrad Sejer series. The book opens with three friends spending a weekend at a cabin. Their interactions seem odd and tainted by an alluded

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to event in the past. The weekend ends with one of them dead. Inspector Sejer and his partner Inspector Jakob Skarre are called in. The victim Jon Moreno had been hospitalized for depression and was out on a weekend pass with his friends. The friends insist he must have been suicidal, but Jon's new girlfriend doesn't agree.

I found Fossum's writing to be very stark, spare and almost bleak. Not in a bad way though. It was just a very different take on a crime novel. There weren't long graphic descriptions of the crime. Instead Fossum focuses on the characters, their inner thoughts and psyches, and she does it very, very well. The thought processes of the two friends left alive are the quite frightening part of this book. The event in the past that has affected the lives of these three young men is slowly revealed - I was eager to see what it was.

I appreciated the banter between Sejer and Skarre, but felt I didn't really come to know them in this slim novel. They are protagonists I would like to know better - I would pick up another book by Karin Fossum without hesitation

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Sejer is investigating a missing persons report which turns pretty quickly to a suicide. The person in question is a psychiatric patient found at the bottom of a lake. The rest of the story reveals the cause of death, the events that surround it and the effect on everyone involved.

This is my first

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Sejer mystery. A quick read, it was a little dark for my taste and just seemed to be lacking something.

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Axel is a sociopath and pathological lier–incidentally also in advertising–who causes the death of a young Vietnamese boy because he doesn't want him to mess up his car if he vomits from being drunk. He convinces his 2 friends to cover it up. This leaves Jon with intractable guilt leading to

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his suicide and Reilly finally confessing. The novel is spare and bleak but effective.

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My first of this series (Konrad Sejer)but he didn't have a very big role in the story. It didn't need him - the story grabbed my attention quickly and never let go. The very creepy events begin in Norway at a place called Dead Water Lake where three friends have gone for a weekend retreat. When

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there is an unexpected accident, more secrets about the friends' past are revealed. Inspector Sejer investigates the incident, but has a limited part. Some of his past is hinted at, making me wish I could read the previous books in the series. Really enjoyed this, even though it's dark and depressing. The characters were interesting and realistic.

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Detectives Sejer and Skarra take a back seat psychologically in this riveting novel of three friends. Jon is severely depressed and Alex and Reilly decide to sign him out of the mental hospital for a trip to their cabin in the woods near Dead Water Lake. Jon takes anti-anxiety pills every hour and

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suffers from paranoia, but what does he have to fear from his friends? They decide to go out in the boat at night during a full moon and suddenly Jon stands and falls overboard. Neither Alex nor Reilly do anything, knowing that in his heavy boots and coat, and being unable to swim there is little they could accomplish anyway. Rather than have to answer a lot of questions, Alex decides it would be best if they simply said he wondered off in the morning and they have no idea where he might be. So they call for help the following morning. But why, wonders Detective Sajer, since Jon cold not swim, would his body wind up 100 meters from the shore?

When another body is discovered in a different lake nearby, Sajer and Skarra know there must be a connection but ultimately the dots are connected by the boys themselves. Not really a police procedural since Sejer and Skarra spend most of their time musing rather than investigating. The relationship between the mothers of the two boys seemed almost irrelevant to the story, but it remains an excellent examination of evil, conscience, and charisma.

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Just okay. We had no electricity, hotter than hell and it gave me something to do

Book Description
Release date: August 14, 2012 | Series: Inspector Sejer (Book 8)
"An intimate study of broken lives that showcases Fossum’s poet past." —Bloomberg

In this chilling addition to the internationally

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best-selling Inspector Konrad Sejer series, the detective must face down his memories and fears as he investigates the deaths of two troubled young men. The first victim, Jon Moreno, was getting better after a mysterious guilt had driven him to a nervous breakdown one year earlier. His psychiatrist said so, as did his new friend at the hospital, Molly Gram, with her little-girl-lost looks. So when he drowns in Dead Water Lake, Sejer hesitates to call it a suicide.

Then the corpse of another young man is found, a Vietnamese immigrant. And Sejer begins to feel his age weigh on him. Does he still have the strength to pursue the elusive explanations for human evil? A harrowing, masterfully wrought mystery from the celebrated Karin Fossum.

“Fascinatingly readable and very cleverly done.” —Colin Dexter, author of the Inspector Morse series
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Things are not always what they seem. This is a lesson that can be learned in this psychological mystery. Although it is listed as part of the Inspector Sejer series, it is not a police procedural and moves along almost without the intervention of the police.

A very good read. Karin Fossum is one of the most well known Scandinavian writers of mystery. Bad Intentions is a tale of 'why' a crime was committed rather than a 'who.' The story's focus is a psychopathic charmer who inveigles two friends into his heinous deeds and to the disastrous consequences

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for all three.The book is one a series with Inspector Sejer as the leading Investigator.
Recommended to all who enjoy mysteries.

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Three friends go away for a weekend, but when one of them takes his life in front of his friends, a hidden and terrible past is forced to the surface. Very different mystery that at the same time does and does not have any guilty characters. The mental processes of the characters are at the

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forefront in this one, and, as usual, Fossum is very clever at making her characters real and relatable, even if the mystery itself isn't exactly flummoxing. Especially the mothers' connection made this a rewarding read - nice to come away from a mystery with some slight sense of "feel-good."

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The question in this excellent thriller by Karen Fossum isn't who, but what, and the suspense is gripping. The first act puts us at woodland cabin next to a lake, where three young men venture out onto the water in a small boat. One falls, or jumps, in: the others do not attempt to save him, but go

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back to shore and "discover" in the morning that their comrade is missing. The dead young man was under intense psychological pressure related to a recent unspecified incident involving all three. Did it drive him to suicide, and what was it? That's the question that the book explores, with the relentless Inspector Sejer becoming more and more convinced that the two men who survive are guilty of a crime. It is fascinating and compelling to follow the gradual peeling back of the facts in the case, and of the personalities and pasts of people in the case. Very low key, but a powerful read nonetheless.

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Karin Fossum is an author who uses observation acutely, whilst being more than willing to play with both expectations and the outer reaches of readers' comfort zones. Each of her books uses a different type of scenario to explore human behaviour and quirks. In BAD INTENTIONS she is looking at the

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nature of manipulation, conscience, and absolute and total egocentricity. She's also very very good at creepy - be it the characters or the setting, and in BAD INTENTIONS there's some of each.

BAD INTENTIONS is the ninth novel overall, seventh available in English, from Norwegian writer Fossum's series based around Inspector Konrad Sejer. These books are all psychological thrillers, within a police procedural setting. But really, the point of all of all of them is to look into a variety of different mindsets - that of the person committing the crime, and often also those observing or affected.

BAD INTENTIONS is about three men - Alex, Reilly and Jon. Friends from childhood, Jon suffers from anxiety attacks and has such severe psychological problems that he's been hospitalised. Alex and Reilly have taken him to their favourite place, a remote cabin in the forest beside a lake, as a treat - to try to cheer him up. Restless the 3 friends row out onto Dead Water Lake, where Jon panics and jumps into the water. One friend wants to save him, the other stops him. A shared story is concocted, suicide is blamed, and they wait until the following morning before calling the police. Konrad Sejer is assigned the case and he and his team quickly start to see inconsistencies, not only in the stories that the boys are telling, but also in Jon himself. Suicide seems so unlikely for someone improving, developing relationships, sorting his life out.

This is a very clever plot that effortlessly demonstrates the snowballing affect of attempted cover ups. In this case, the cover-up of Jon's death is just yet another link in a chain of lies and bad choices (intentions if you like) that goes way back. But as with any of Fossum's books - it's not just about the cover-up, BAD INTENTIONS is also about friendship, damaged people and breathtaking ruthlessness.

Best of all, BAD INTENTIONS is extremely believable. Okay so that's probably not a "best" thing, but this book describes events that are totally feasible - there isn't a single moment's reading where you are left thinking "no, surely not". Cleverly written, insightful and informative, this is a book that is suspenseful and entertaining whilst also being extremely thought-provoking. Exactly what you'd expect from this fantastic series.

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What the … ? This was a very disappointing entry in the Inspector Sejer series. Three young men are spending the weekend in a lake cabin, and one dies. The other two come up with a version of events that points to suicide. About halfway through the book, the young men are linked to another crime.

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The details unfold in a very predictable way. There’s no drama, no twist, just one long reveal.

I had several problems with this book. There really wasn’t a mystery; it’s apparent from the beginning that the young men are trouble. Inspector Sejer and his partner are peripheral characters and don’t even solve the crime. I guess this was intended to be more of a psychological thriller, but it failed in that regard as well. The young men were one-dimensional characters who did not earn any sympathy. The translation of these novels can be clunky at times, so I can only hope this book is better in the original Norwegian.

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