Fossum draws excellent characters and gives them enough genuine feeling to create real tension between the desire to solve the murder at hand (for once the victim too seems more than a manufactured plot device) and an understanding of overly insular, xenophobic town life that seeks to quell any disturbance lest "the moving finger," as Agatha Christie called it, come too near.At the core of the novel is Gunder Jomann, a wonderfully sympathetic character, and the perfect counterbalance to the brutality that suddenly dominates Elvestad.A very fine mystery.
