Bad Intentions by Karin Fossum

Bad Intentions by Karin Fossum
Buy Bad Intentions by Karin Fossum at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com
Category: Crime
Reviewer: Sue Magee
Summary: A psychological thriller rather than a police procudural - and a short but very intense read.
Buy? Yes	Borrow? Yes
Pages: 192	Date: July 2011
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 978-0099535843
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Jon, Reilly and Axel had been friends for the best part of a couple of decades. Axel was the dominant one of the trio and Reilly was easily led. Jon - well Jon was vulnerable. Something had happened to them all at the end of the previous year and Jon had recently been in a mental hospital, but now, at the beginning of autumn, Axel and Reilly were taking him for a weekend at Dead Water Lake.

The three young men went out in a boat and Jon went over the side. Neither Axel nor Reilly made any attempt to help him and they didn't report his disappearnace until the following moring - and even then they said that he'd gone for a walk in the forst and had not returned.

If you're expecting a police procedural then this book might disappoint. Inspector Sejer and Jakob Skarre are there - and Sejer has a new dog - but their presence is almost incidental. It's almost as though Fossum needed a couple of policemen for the story and these two were available. They were convenient policemen to use in what is really a psychological thriller rather than a 'whodunnit'.

It's a short book but by no means an easy read. As usual Fossum gets right to the heart of her story in language so spare a to be justthe right side of brutal. There isn't a wasted word in the book. I didn't find it a relaxing read but it was impossible not to continue particularly when the body of a teenage boy floated to the surface of another lake. You're pretty certain which way the story is going right the way through: it's not a book of clever tricks or unexpected twists - just a carefully crafted thriller.

I'd like to thank the publishers for sending a copy to the Bookbag.

If this book appeals then you might like to try any of Fossum's other books. For equally dark Scandinavian crime Henning Mankell will not disappoint.

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