Type of bind: Mass Market Paperback
EAN num: 9780099507369
ISBN number: 0099507366
Label: Vintage Books
Manufacturer: Vintage Books
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 272
Printing Date: August 25, 2009
Publishing house: Vintage Books
Release Date: August 25, 2009
Studio: Vintage Books
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Product Description:
A gripping novel set on the boundary between fact and fiction.
A woman wakes one night to find that a strange man has walked into her bedroom. She lies there in terrified silence unable to move. The woman is an author and the man one of her prospective characters. So desperate is he to have his story told that he has resorted to breaking into her house to make her tell it.
She creates Alvar Eide, forty-two years old, single, who works in an art gallery. He lives a quiet, dutiful life, carefully designed to avoid surprises. One winter’s day, all this begins to change when an emaciated young heroin addict walks into the gallery. A kind man, Alvar gives her a cup of coffee to warm her up. She returns some weeks later to his place of work, and then one day appears on his doorstep demanding to be let in.
Interspersed with the chapters of Alvar’s story are his encounters with its author — the frantic attempts of a fictional man trying to control his own destiny. Broken is a gripping novel about the boundary between fact and fiction and the perils of good intentions.
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Rated by buyers 
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Fossum is listed by The London Times as one of the 50 best crime writers ever. Her Detective Sejer series is very good; my wife and I have devoured every one we can find. Fossum has two great strengths in these Sejer novels; her unexpected plot twists and her ability to draw interesting characters without being trite or cliche. In this novel, Broken, her ability to draw characters is showcased but there is practically no surprise or mystery to drive the plot, to such a degree that I was very disappointed when I finished reading this book.
This could be a story about Fossum herself as an author, the writer in this novel certainly could be her, and in this tale of how an novelist comes to tell a story and create characters, the beginning is interesting and unusual. By the halfway point the reader is becoming very hungry for a mystery to solve or for some puzzle to become involved with. The novel is unsatisfying for a Fossum fan who looks for clues and reads towards an interesting resolution. If you are a Fossum fan you too could very well be disappointed.
If you have not read Fossum, do not start with Broken, grab a copy of the Indian Bride, a really excellent crime novel, one of the mysteries that got her onto the 50 Best All Time list.
Rated by buyers 
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If you're a fan of Fossum's Konrad Sejer detective series, you might feel a bit disappointed that her latest novel `Broken' isn't part of the series but something rather different.
You might even, having read the synopsis, imagine that this isn't going to be for you. It sounds a bit odd, doesn't it? One of her characters comes into her bedroom and talks to her. I admit I wasn't sure this was going to work.
But I needn't have worried, and you needn't worry either. The mark of a really good writer is that whatever they write, it will be worth reading.
And in any case, 'Broken' is not that dissimilar to Fossum's other books. In those there's often a social misfit who, through his inexperience of the world ends up in trouble, unintentionally and without malice. This is a theme Fossum has explored many times and she goes to town on it here.
The misfit this time is Alvar Eide, who works at an art gallery, has no friends or family, and is socially inept, to an extreme degree.
And yet, he's rather likeable. A bit weird, perhaps, but his weirdness is only an extreme version of what's in a lot of us. It's easy to empathise with Alvar - most of the time anyway.
The book is all about him, and focuses very closely on him. We get to know him very well. And from different angles, because he's the character that pops into the author's house from time to time for a chat about how the plot's going. This is an odd device, but strangely, and contrary to my expectation, it works. You could read a lot into why Fossum does this. Is it to reveal something about her creative process, or about herself perhaps? It's hard to know because the 'author' is also a character, presumably. But to what extent? By letting the character talk to the author, and therefore the reader, off stage as it were, it in a way lets the reader into the process more than usual too.
It shouldn't work. It's an odd thing to do. I've never come across it before, but I don't wish she hadn't done it.
And Alvar's story is as compelling as anything else Fossum has written.
There may not be a string of gruesome crimes and a police investigation (though the police are involved at some point...) but `Broken' is full of suspense and tension. I found myself getting quite worked up at times, almost wanting to shout at Alvar. He certainly is impossible at times. If he'd come into my house I would have given him some good advice, that's for sure.
As usual, the writing is spare and concise. With the lightest touch Fossum lays the story before you so you see it like a movie running in your head. There's great skill in the writing but you never notice it.
So then. A different kind of Karin Fossum novel. I thought I would miss Sejer and Skarre, and that old dog. But I didn't. Not for a second. This is a brilliant novel.
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