The Indian Bride (Inspector Sejer Mysteries Book 5)

First let me say I loved this book until the very end where I was very let down. It's about a murder in a small Norway town - a town where everyone knows everyone else and their parents and knows everyone else's business. Just recently Gunder Jomann a fifty-something man who sells agriculture machinery goes on vacation to India to find a wife and find a wife he does. He actually meets his soulmate while there. They marry in India and Gunder returns home to tie up some loose ends before Poona (his wife) flies to Norway to be with him.Meanwhile a body is discovered in a field and her face has been so brutually beaten that she is unrecognizable. All the police know is that she is brown skinned and wearing gold bangles and gold sandals. They set out to find out who she is. All the while Gunder is wondering where Poona is. She was not at the airport and she has not arrived at his house. In fact he has not heard from her at all, but he refuses to believe that she is the body found in the field. Inspector Konrad Sejer and his assistant Jacob Skarre are investigating the murder and they put two and two together. There are plenty of suspects to pick from - the bar owner Einar Sunde who is going through martial problems and has secrets from everyone else to the young, immature bodybuilder Goran Seter who is having female problems. The police must piece together the evidence and what little they have learned from the town's residents to arrest someone for the murder of Poona.The book is a beautiful love story and well told but without giving too much away the ending is just miserable. It leaves so many loose ends that I just wasn't comfortable with the ending. If the rest of Fossum's books are written the same way I won't be reading any of them.

After months of having Karin Fossum's thrillers on my TBR list, I finally got down to reading "The Indian Bride" and was so taken with her writing style that I have a pile of her books on my nightstand, which I plan to read as soon as I can.In "The Indian Bride", 51-year-old benign bachelor Gunder Jomann, a farming equipment salesman decides to go to India and find himself an Indian wife. This decision is arrived at after Gunder sees a picture of a beautiful, exotic woman in a book given to him by his sister, Marie. Now, this is quite an unusual decision given that Gunder lives in a small town in Norway - Elvestad, with a population of only 2,347 inhabitants. Most of the people are ethnic Norwegians, with the exception of two families, one Vietnamese and the other Korean. But, Gunder is resolved and goes off on a two-week trip to Mumbai, India, where he promptly meets a waitress in a tandoori restaurant, a slender, pleasing lady,with striking silky,long black hair not quite forty and falls in love with her. The lady, Poona, is taken by Gunder's gentlemanly manner and they promptly wed. Gunder leaves for Norway with Poona promising that she'll make her way to Elvestad as soon as she ties up her personal business in India. In Karin Fossum's able hands, this whirlwind romance between Gunder and Poona comes across as wholly credible, achingly so, and not at all cliched as one would imagine such 'sudden romances' to be. Gunder strikes us as a truly decent person who left it till late in life to experience romance and marriage. Poona, given her impoverished circumstances, does not seem like a gold digger, but someone who sees a potential happy future away from the poverty, dust, heat and grime and is more than willing to move to a land of 'snow and ice' with a man she deems gentle and good.Unfortunately, this is a crime thriller, and the unfortunate victim is Poona. On the day of her arrival, poor Marie [Gunder's sister] gets into a horrific car crash and goes into a coma. Gunder, torn between being there for his sister and going to meet his wife at the airport, makes the fateful decision of staying with his sister, making arrangements with a local cabbie to receive Poona instead. Gunder never sees Poona again - she is found in a field close to Gunder's house, her face bashed in beyond recognition.In steps Inspector Konrad Sejer and his much younger assistant, Jacob Skarre.Even the much-experienced Insp Sejer finds himself immensely disturbed by the crime and goes all out to solve the crime, gaining lots of interesting insights along the way. Sejer realizes that the town's inhabitants are a tough crowd and seem to be very protective of their own, something Sejer actually empathizes with "We're not talking about evil here, but the good in people that stops them from saying what they know."This is not just an average crime thriller, but a meditation on human frailties, of people's natural tendency to protect their own, even in the face of unpalatable truths,and the complexities of small town society ."The Indian Bride" has all these and great character delineation. I look forward to reading other works by Karin Fossum.

I really like the Inspector Sejer series. Always a mystery tied with characters that are detailed enough to make them real.

Nicely done, well drawn characters. A trip through the norwegian countryside. 5th in the inspector Sejer series, but i started with this one and didn't feel lost. Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Award.The ending is open, so you may want to read the next.

Good read. Wasn't exactly captivated by it all. Wish the Indian Bride hadn't been murdered at the beginning of the book. Would like to have gotten to know her better.

Adoro i romanzi di questa scrittrice per il loro realismo e l'introspezione psicologica e sono molto affezionata al suo ispettore. Questo libro l'ho trovato specialmente bello, in un modo triste e struggente insieme.

Le livre m'a ennuyé. Les descriptions sont lassantes. Je n'ai pas été convaincue par Karin Fossum dont c'était le premier livre que je lisais.

A word of warning. This book is the 2007 United States release of the UK released CALLING OUT FOR YOU from 2006. This version has the title THE INDIAN BRIDE and if you have already read or bought CALLING OUT FOR YOU, please AVOID this novel!!