The Caller
Published on 7. July 2011
Book
Paperback/Softback
304 pages
978-1-84655-393-6 (ISBN)
Description
One mild summer evening Lily and her husband are enjoying a meal while their baby daughter sleeps peacefully in her pram beneath a maple tree. But when Lily steps outside she is paralysed with terror. The child is bathed in blood.
Inspector Sejer is called to the hospital to meet the family. Mercifully, the baby is unharmed, but her parents are deeply shaken, and Sejer spends the evening trying to comprehend why anyone would carry out such a sinister prank. Then, just before midnight, somebody rings his doorbell.
The corridor is empty, but the caller has left a small grey envelope on the mat. From his living room window, the inspector watches a figure slip across the car park and disappear into the darkness. Inside the envelope Sejer finds a postcard bearing a short message: Hell begins now.
Inspector Sejer is called to the hospital to meet the family. Mercifully, the baby is unharmed, but her parents are deeply shaken, and Sejer spends the evening trying to comprehend why anyone would carry out such a sinister prank. Then, just before midnight, somebody rings his doorbell.
The corridor is empty, but the caller has left a small grey envelope on the mat. From his living room window, the inspector watches a figure slip across the car park and disappear into the darkness. Inside the envelope Sejer finds a postcard bearing a short message: Hell begins now.
Reviews / Votes
Fossum is admired by Ruth Rendell and you can see why: both prefer to explore the vagaries of the human mind rather than deal in bullets and car chases -- Carla McKay * Daily Mail * The Caller, is one the darkest, most disturbing crime stories you're likely to read this year.Like Patricia Highsmith, the queen of the night, and Ruth Rendell, the high priestess of darkness, Fossum is a grandmaster at the art of psychological terror. Her thoughts are gloomy, her mind is subtle and her writing is extraordinarily supple -- Marilyn Stasio * New York Times Book Review * Fossum's Norway is an apposite setting for a long dark night of the soul' * Independent * It is a sign of Fossum's sophistication that the reader comes to empathise with the teenaged tormentor - a deliberate ploy which makes the double-twist ending all the more shocking -- Julia Hanford * Sunday Telegraph * Fossum's novels stray off the crime genre's beaten track in search of the profound, and rarely disappoint. A contemporary Patricia Highsmith, her offbeat obsession with the psychology of the criminal mind, and the human cost of criminal activity, pays off handsomely again -- Declan Burke * Irish Times *
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Vintage Publishing
Product notice
Paperback (UK-trade)
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 153 mm
Thickness: 22 mm
Weight
415 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-84655-393-6 (9781846553936)
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Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Karin Fossum's critically acclaimed novels have won numerous prizes. She is two-time winner of the prestigious Riverton Award and has also won the Glass Key Award for the best Nordic crime novel, an honour shared with Henning Mankell and Jo Nesbo, as well as the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Her highly acclaimed Inspector Sejer series has been published in more than forty countries.