BAD INTENTIONS - Karin Fossum

Karin Fossum is an author who uses observation acutely, whilst being more than willing to play with both expectations and the outer reaches of readers' comfort zones.  Each of her books uses a different type of scenario to explore human behaviour and quirks.  In BAD INTENTIONS she is looking at the nature of manipulation, conscience, and absolute and total egocentricity.  She's also very very good at creepy - be it the characters or the setting, and in BAD INTENTIONS there's some of each.

BAD INTENTIONS is the ninth novel overall, seventh available in English, from Norwegian writer Fossum's series based around Inspector Konrad Sejer.  These books are all psychological thrillers, within a police procedural setting.  But really, the point of all of all of them is to look into a variety of different mindsets - that of the person committing the crime, and often also those observing or affected.

BAD INTENTIONS is about three men - Alex, Reilly and Jon.  Friends from childhood, Jon suffers from anxiety attacks and has such severe psychological problems that he's been hospitalised.  Alex and Reilly have taken him to their favourite place, a remote cabin in the forest beside a lake, as a treat - to try to cheer him up.  Restless the 3 friends row out onto Dead Water Lake, where Jon panics and jumps into the water.  One friend wants to save him, the other stops him.  A shared story is concocted, suicide is blamed, and they wait until the following morning before calling the police.  Konrad Sejer is assigned the case and he and his team quickly start to see inconsistencies, not only in the stories that the boys are telling, but also in Jon himself.  Suicide seems so unlikely for someone improving, developing relationships, sorting his life out.

This is a very clever plot that effortlessly demonstrates the snowballing affect of attempted cover ups.  In this case, the cover-up of Jon's death is just yet another link in a chain of lies and bad choices (intentions if you like) that goes way back.  But as with any of Fossum's books - it's not just about the cover-up, BAD INTENTIONS is also about friendship, damaged people and breathtaking ruthlessness.

Best of all, BAD INTENTIONS is extremely believable.  Okay so that's probably not a "best" thing, but this book describes events that are totally feasible - there isn't a single moment's reading where you are left thinking "no, surely not".  Cleverly written, insightful and informative, this is a book that is suspenseful and entertaining whilst also being extremely thought-provoking.  Exactly what you'd expect from this fantastic series.