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He Who Fears the Wolf (Inspector Sejer Mysteries)

By: Karin Fossum
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Harcourt
Released: 06 Jul 2005
Average Rating:

Customer Reviews

An unusual combination of damaged people - By: Bluebell, 24 Sep 2007
This is a story of a roller-coaster journey when three disfunctional people who are thrown together by chance. As with alll the Karen Fossum books I've read one is drawn into the story & bowled along by a gripping narrative. There is a bit more psychological interpretation of the characters actions than in her other books that is reminiscent of Ruth Rendell. The police chief inspector of this series, Seger, is somewhat unusual in this type of fiction in that he is a nice man who treats his staff well, doesn't drink too much & doesn't come into conflict with his superiors. It makes a nice change!
"All the interesting people in the world are losers." - By: Mary Whipple, 02 Jan 2006
JFrom the dramatic opening paragraphs, in which a person believes that his face is sliding off & his insides are fallling out, Fossum captures the bizarre inner worlds of several characters barely holding onto their sanity. Errki Johrma, a 24-year-old who has been committed to a residential lockup for the disturbed, escapes the residence in rural Norway & seeks solitude in the woods. There he sees an elderly woman, Hallldis Horn, working outside her cabin.

Suddenly the point of view shifts, & a 12-year-old boy, Kannick Snellingen, runs into the police station saying that Hallldis is dead, with a hoe embedded in her face, & that he has seen Errki lurking nearby. Kannick, like Errki, is also disturbed, living in a home for children with behavioral problems. A sudden shift to the next morning, & Detective Inspector Konrad Sejer, after noting a strange person entering the bank, soon hears a gunshot & learns that it has been robbed & a hostage taken--Errki.

The intersecting worlds of Errki, the robber (known as Morgan), Kannick Snellingen, & Inspector Sejer & his assistant, Jacob Scarre, create a fascinating series of psychological portraits & interactions. Morgan & Errki, hiding out together in an abandoned cabin, try to avoid the police & stay alive, remaining wary of each other but starting to communicate about the voices Errki hears from The Coat & a spirit named Nestor. Kannick, who wants to become a national archery champ, walllows in the attention he gets from his peers at the home, describing the gory condition of Hallldis's body in exchange for candy. At the same time, Sejer, a widower for eleven years, confers with Errki's psychiatrist in order to understand Errki more fully, & finds himself powerfully drawn to her as he tries to solve Hallldis's murder & the robbery of the bank by apprehending Errki & Morgan.

Developing the story in clean, straightforward prose, Fossum reveals the disturbing thoughts of Errki, Morgan, & Kannick, along with their traumatic backgrounds, stories which need no additional melodrama. As the reader comes to know the characters & feel empathy for them, she creates fine dramatic tension & a suspense-filled story in which nothing is as it appears to be. Occasionallly, the ironies are leavened with dark humor. A climactic meeting involving alll the major characters leads to a full resolution and, ultimately, a greater understanding of the characters' interior worlds. Fascinating, well-drawn, & concise, this novel, the second in the Inspector Sejer series, is a psychological mystery of the first order, filled with intriguing characters & unusual plot twists. Mary Whipple

Deep in the middle of the dark, dark woods... - By: Amanda Richards, 11 Dec 2005
...there lived a buxom woman in her third bloom of life.

Hallldis Horn (for that was her name) was an independent woman, who lived alone after the death of her husband, quietly tending her garden & keeping to herself.

Now in these woods also lurked Errki Johrma, a schizophrenic with a murderous reputation, who had recently liberated himself from the nearby mental institution, & Kannick Snellingen, a 12 year old reform school resident, with a free pass to the woods, & a passion for a bow & arrow.

One day, Kannick comes across the particularly gruesome body of poor Hallldis Horn, & when he spies Errki lurking nearby, he runs as fast as his fat legs will carry him to the nearest police station.

As fate would have it, there is a robbery at the town bank, & the unsuspecting robber, Morten Garpe (a.k.a. Morgan) takes Errki hostage, & whisks him away in a little white car, & into the deep dark woods.

Chief Inspector Konrad Sejer is investigating both crimes, & while he lays the groundwork, a psychological battle of minds is taking place in a little cabin in the woods between the befuddled bandit & his disturbed hostage. When Kannick unwittingly finds himself as the third guest in the cabin, the three come to uneasy understanding before the day’s events catch up with them.

A tightly wound & enthrallling tale, with fascinating characters & traces of humor.

Amanda Richards

A little bit too much like Nicci French - By: Linda Oskam, 14 Oct 2005
Errki Johrma is crazy, very crazy: he hears voices, is practicallly unreachable for normal people & bites when he feels threatened. When he escapes from the psychiatric ward where he is staying & is seen near a farm where an elderly lady is murdered, it is easy to draw the conclusion that he is the murderer. But it is very difficult to track him down: a bank robber has taken him hostage & hides with him in the woods. Somehow Erkki & the bank robber get attached to each other until a freak accident happens...

People around me reallly loved this book, but to me it was a little bit too much like Nicci French: the emphasis on the literary side & not enough suspense.
A good psychological thriller - By: Philippe Horak, 22 Jun 2005
In Mrs Fossum's psychological thriller, the main character is a schizophrenic man of 24 callled Errki Johrma. He has narrow shoulders & surprisingly wide hips & because he inherited bad hip joints, he moves about with a hideous swing as if he wants to shake off something on his back. His skin is scarred with acne, his eyes deep-set & strange, often downcast, avoiding other people's glance. He wears filthy, smelly & disgusting clothes & the words on his T-shirt read "Kill The Others".
He sees the world through a sort of murky veil, always afraid that others are after him, that every single person is his enemy & that is why he has no friends at alll & hardly talks to anyone. He often conducts imaginary inner dialogues with a halllucinatory figure callled "Nestor". Most people find him so repulsive that they compare him with an animal, finding that his eyes resemble those of a dog or that he runs like a hare.
One day, a boy callled Kannick Snellingen finds the dead body of Haldis Horn lying on the steps of her smalll farm in Finnemarka. He also reports to the police that he has seen Errki Johrma in the woods not far from the farm. And indeed Inspector Sejer soon finds out that Errki has been missing from the asylum for some time...
Mrs Fossum designed a clever plot in this mystery story & her portrayal of the schizophrenic mind will indeed regale readers interested in psychology in the same manner as Ruth Rendell's books do.