And the challenge is: blog about books or stories written by women. If you'd like to join in, Barbara Fister is here.
BLACK SECONDS is the second book by Karen Fossum I've read. And the ending really caught me up. An unexpected ending is not a prerequisite for me so I am always amazed when someone pulls it off. And pull it off, she did in a most satisfying way. It all made sense, the clues were there, and yet I didn't see it coming.
Fossum takes elements of the police procedural and mixes them with psychological drama in BLACK SECONDS. Women writers seem more interested in doing this. Less concerned with action and more concerned with motivation and character, which makes for a good read for me. The great exemplar of this sort of writing was Margaret Millar and I think Fossum is a worthy successor.
Inspector Sejer is the series detective in the two Fossum books I have read and it is he who doggedly follows the few threads he is able to find in the story. BLACK SECONDS concerns the disappearance of a ten year old girl on a yellow bike.
A secondary plot deals with a cousin of the girl--a teenager who crashes his car. This plot gradually dominates the novel. But the two strands come together in the end.
Karin Fossum is very adept at both keeping you reading and in putting depth and complexity in her plot. I am anxious to read a third book by Ms. Fossum.
Anyone else read Karin Fossum?
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