Self-Organizing Man

I love crime fiction. When I’m not reading manuscripts for Homofactus Press, I’m reading all kinds of mysteries. Frankly, I’m rather loose with my tastes as I will read any author once, particulary one is called the Queen of Norwegian Crime Fiction.

Karin Fossum is well-known in crime fiction circles in the U.S., as several of her books have been translated into American English. So it was with excitement that I opened the pages of Don’t Look Back, her second novel and first to be translated into American English.

I got to page thirty or so and read the main character’s stream of consciousness claim, “things are not always what they seem….” Right then I knew that don’t look back should have been an exhortation for me to pass over Ms. Fossum’s works in my local library and choose another author.

Much crime fiction just plain sucks. Ms. Fossum suffers from an attention to detail that does nothing to advance the story. Florid descriptions of gardens in a small town nestled in a fjord tells me what? And then we have the theme of dark secrets in a small town, as in, you know, things aren’t what they seem. Whatever.

I’ll take Henning Mankill any day, even with his labored middle sections of his novels. Good crime fiction is very, very difficult to write well. Great crime fiction even harder. What irks me whenever I read boring fiction ~ and that is my opinion of Fossum’s book (I attempted to read a second book of hers and found it even worse “when you see the self you become when the devil holds the candle” zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz) ~ is that I will never get that time back again.

As my brother likes to say, “Man, that’s two hours I’ll never get back again.” Don’t look back!