Water’s Edge

Water’s Edge is another good mystery from the Norwegian author Karin Fossum. The novel finds the police investigating the death of one young boy and the disappearance of another.  The Norwegian setting makes a nice change from the standard American or English procedurals, but the book could have been set anywhere.  Similar to other Scandinavian mysteries, the mood is a bit melancholy, but not depressingly so.

Fossum’s style is reminiscent of Robert Parker and early Dick Francis.  The story is stripped down to its most important elements, with a spare use of words, description and little extraneous narrative.  People do what they have to do and move through life following a personal sense of right and wrong.  It has the basics I look for in a mystery – a good story, interesting characters, a focus on the mystery not on the backstory or the lives of the detectives, several narrative threads come together and the resolution was not easy to guess.

I liked and recommend this short, satisfying mystery.

-Alison