Black Seconds

By: Karin Fossum

Narrated by: David Rintoul

Length: 8 hrs and 41 mins

Publisher's Summary

Ida Joner gets on her brand-new bike and sets off to buy sweets. A good-natured, happy girl, she is looking forward to her 10th birthday. Thirty-five minutes after Ida should have come home, Helga Joner, her mother, starts to worry. She phones the shop and various friends, but no one has seen her daughter. As the family goes out looking for Ida, Helga’s worst nightmare becomes reality, and they contact the police.

Hundreds of volunteers comb the neighbourhood, but there are no traces of Ida or her bike. As the relatives reach breaking point and the media frenzy begins, Inspector Sejer is calm and reassuring. But he finds the case puzzling. Usually missing children are found within forty-eight hours. Ida Joner seems to have vanished without a trace.

©2011 Karin Fossum (P)2011 Random House Audio Go

Karin does it again

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Yes, I would recommend it, this author draws me in with her characters. I think this is her strength. Her insight into human behaviour is quite remarkable, the why and wherefore's her character's actions are so believable. I feel she so often gets it right in regard to how people act.

If you’ve listened to books by Karin Fossum before, how does this one compare?

I was a little disappointed as I worked this one out very early in the book but Karin's writing kept me interested until the end. I am so intrigued by her writing skill that she keeps me listening.

What aspect of David Rintoul’s performance would you have changed?

Nothing, he is like an old friend now

Any additional comments?

It is so refreshing to read murder mysteries when the main detective's offsider,
in this case Skarre, can think for himself and is more like a partner. I really like this about this series, it's not always Sajer telling his junior what to do. I also appreciate the fact that there is no 'big police boss' yelling at Sajer and demanding results. This theme is so overdone in most crime novels. So far we haven't had the killer after the main protagonist either and we learn enough about Sajer's personal life without the book becoming all about him and losing the crime as a focus

Drab and monotonous

I've never read a mystery where the ending is so ridiculously obvious from the very beginning, nothing but a drab and monotonous read.

Amazing, gripping, sad

I have been listening to KF's Sejer novels in order and each one is amazing. The plots are imaginative and tragically realistic, with accidents and misfortune propelling the narrative far more than any notion of evil genius against which the detective is pitted.
However, it is Sejer's kindness, his empathy, his humanity, that counterpoints and, in contrast, profiles the ethical failure of other characters.

Good plot

This is a well worked plot nicely played to an end.
Good moral re a tangled web of deceipt.

Black seconds

Fabulous story, couldn't put it down! Great narrator also, kept me intrigued, with the whole story knitting together by the last word. More please

Read books in order!

IKarin Fossum's books need to be read in order, after reading ' The Indian Bride ' one of the unanswered questions has been answered when reading this book. Konrad Serjer interviews with potential suspects show empathy and compassion, it's a direct story line and I couldn't put it down.