Read: "Indian Bride" by Karin Fossum

Read: Indian Bride by Karin Fossum, 2005, 9780151011827.

Not a mystery novel. Not a police procedural. Took a while for this to get interesting. I was not rushing to read this one but it is a decent novel. Things did not pick up and interest me until halfway through.

Fossum is a Norwegian broad. When reading translations I always wonder how good the translator did. Example: the detective's dog is named Kollberg. Kollberg's name draws questions from one or two characters but I have no idea what "Kollberg" means. Not sure that is the translator's thought.

There was a really neat passage about the detective, Sejer.

There was a woman in his life. Sara Struel, a psychiatrist. She had her own key to his house and came and went as she pleased. There was always excitement in his body when he climbed the thirteen steps to his apartment and reached the top. He could see from the narrow, crack between the door and the doorstep whether she was there or not. He also had a dog, Kollberg. It was his one personal extravagance. Sometimes at night the heavy animal sneaked up onto his bed. Then he would pretend to be asleep and not notice. But Kollberg weighed a hundred and fifty pounds and the mattress sagged mightily when he settled at the foot of the bed.

That passage was on page 84 and really stuck out. Probably because, to that point, Sejer was an unknown. It doesn't stick out as much now.

Plot: Farming implement salesman Gunder travels to India to get a wife. Gunder marries a waitress, Poona, from his favorite lunch place. The day of Poona's arrival finds Gunder at his sister's bedside after a horrific car crash. The cab driver sent to find Poona misses her and her badly battered body is found in a field only a few hundred yards from Gunder's house. Sejer and another cop take the case.