The Caller: Book summary and reviews of The Caller by Karin Fossum

The Caller Summary

One mild summer evening, a young couple are enjoying dinner while their daughter sleeps peacefully in her stroller under a tree. When her mother steps outside she is stunned: The child is covered in blood.

Inspector Sejer is called to the hospital to meet the family. Mercifully, the child is unharmed, but the parents are deeply shaken, and Sejer spends the evening trying to understand why anyone would carry out such a sinister prank. Then, just before midnight, somebody rings his doorbell.

No one is at the door, but the caller has left a small gray envelope on Sejer's mat. From his living room window, the inspector watches a figure disappear into the darkness. Inside the envelope Sejer finds a postcard bearing a short message: Hell begins now.

This is classic Fossum - and the critics are saying this is her best book since The Indian Bride.

The Caller Reviews

"Fossum manages to create menace without a high body count, and strikes a realistic note by not allowing her investigators to wrap up everything." - Publishers Weekly

"With a focus on characters and the impacts of crime, Fossum's psychological thrillers will appeal, in particular, to fans of Anne Holt and Henning Mankell." - Booklist

"The publisher calls this Fossum's best since 2007's The Indian Bride - not that anyone thinks she's slipped." - Library Journal

"As in Ruth Rendell's books as Barbara Vine, readers are invited to watch helplessly as things go from bad to much, much worse for an unlucky group of basically nice people. If that's your pleasure, you could hardly do better." - Kirkus Reviews

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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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