Broken: Book summary and reviews of Broken by Karin Fossum

Broken Summary

A woman wakes up in the middle of the night. A strange man is in her bedroom. She lies there in silence, paralyzed with fear.The woman is an author and the man one of her characters, one in a long line that waits in her driveway for the time when she'll tell their stories. He is so desperate that he has resorted to breaking into her house and demanding that she begin. He, the author decides, is named Alvar Eide, forty-two years old, single, works in a gallery. He lives a quiet, orderly life and likes it that way? - no demands, no unpleasantness. Until one icy winter day when a young drug addict, skinny and fragile, walks into the gallery. Alvar gives her a cup of coffee to warm her up. And then one day she appears on his doorstep.

Broken is an unconventional, subtle, and disturbing mystery from a master of the form.

Broken Reviews

"With its remarkably detailed portrait of Eide ... a gift by Fossum's devotees; others may find it more a fleshed-out novelette, albeit in the author's typically crisp and insightful prose." - Library Journal

"[An] odd departure from her Inspector Sejer series...Despite an intriguing concept, Fossum never fully sheds the artificiality of a writer writing about a writer writing." - Publishers Weekly

"A chamber play for two characters...The result is slender but haunting." - Kirkus

"Fossum's short but powerful novel is a treat for all writers but will appeal to any reader willing to look just a bit beneath the surface." - Shelf Awareness

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Karin Fossum Author Biography

Karin Fossum is the author of many novels and two collections of short stories. Her crime novels featuring Inspector Sejer have been translated into sixteen languages.

Don't Look Back is the first of Fossum's police procedurals to be published in the USA. The second in the series, He Who Fears The Wolf was published in 2005, and other translations of the series in English include Calling Out For You and Black Seconds.

Fossum has recently been honored with Gumshoe Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for mystery/thriller. She lives in a small town in southeastern Norway.

Author Interview

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