Bad Intentions

Starred review from June 27, 2011
Fossum's excellent seventh Insp. Konrad Sejer mystery (after 2009's The Water's Edge) focuses on three young menâthe disturbingly intuitive Axel Frimann, the bumbling drug addict Philip Reilly, and the painfully sensitive Jon Moreno. They've been friends forever, but something happens that alters the dynamic among them and causes the unbalanced Moreno to abruptly throw himself out of a small boat into a lake outside Oslo called, appropriately, Dead Water. Sejer and his partner, Jacob Skarre, find no evidence of murder, but something is off, as suggested by Frimann and Reilly altering the details of the suicide. When the body of a 17-year-old Vietnamese immigrant, Kim Van Chau, surfaces in another lake, Sejer discovers that the trio were at the same party as Chau the night he went missing. While Sejer isn't as active as in earlier entries in this fine series, his distinctive presence still enriches the story.