~ The Indian Bride, by Karin Fossum ~
This title suggests a heart-rending Western novel involving child brides and patriarchal customs in the subcontinent, but in fact this is a Scandinavian-noir mystery in the genre made so popular by Stieg Larsson and Henning Mankell.
Karin Fossum’s mysteries are set in remote Norway towns, and this is the fifth in the series. Elvestad, the location for The Indian Bride, has one wooden church, one gas station, one school, a post office, a store and a cafe and 2,347 residents. Among them is Gunder Jomann, 51, lonely, who would like to be married. Gunder is a calm, kind, slow, respectable man with a house and all the amenities, and when browsing a coffee-table book called People of All Nations, he is most taken by the women from India. He is not much of a traveller, but books himself a two-week trip to the 18-million-strong city of Mumbai.
Gunder is a man of habit, not an avid explorer. In Mumbai he finds one restaurant he likes, and goes there every single day. A relationship develops between the 38-year-old waitress and himself (luckily both speak some English), he proposes, and they get married. He heads back to Elvestad, where she is to join him in a couple of weeks. On the day she is expected to arrive, a woman’s battered body is found in the town, and thence starts the police investigation starring Rossum’s Inspector Sejer.
Fossum touches lightly on India, entirely through Gunder’s eyes, based on his limited knowledge of India from the book and his brief visit. The Indian wife is called Poona Bai, which is passable, but it is less likely that her brother’s name would be Shiraz Bai. The ‘sari’ she is wearing is described as a loose tunic with flowing pants. These are minor problems, though, because the book is really focused on Elvestad, its inhabitants, and the murder.
Everyone knows everyone in Elvestad, but there is a strong sense of introversion among the inhabitants as well. Very few people know of Gunder’s visit to India, nor does he tell them about his marriage until absolutely necessary. Gunder and his sister are close and caring, but they have long periods of silence, and he has rarely met his sister’s husband. Older people are kindly, but not outwardly so, while the younger group are all about snarky banter, cliques, and class consciousness. One wonders what Poona Bai would have made of the townspeople.
Inspector Sejer in Fossum’s books is calm and quiet, but relentless. Unlike many mystery-novel detectives, he is not tortured, has no terrible events in his past, and doesn’t suffer from a problem with alcoholism or women. He is an upstanding believer in justice. In general the police are amazingly understanding when interviewing the local witnesses and suspects. They don’t seem surprised when Gunder fails to report his missing wife. In many mystery novels it would be suspicious if the husband of a missing woman hid his marriage photo from the police, but here the detectives are sympathetic.
Despite the generally high rankings for gender equality in Scandinavia, Scandinavian mysteries tend to be full of murdered women and misogyny, and Fossum’s are no exception. Almost all of her novels have featured a female or child corpse. As with The Indian Bride, they are set in remote small towns where isolation plays a part in relationships, witnesses, and motives.
Fossum’s novels are translated, of course, and this translation is by Charlotte Barslund. The dialogue is in generic English:
“Good God, look at the state of you!”
“You’re saying he’s a psychopath.”
“That’s your term, not mine, and by the way that’s a concept I have never come to grips with”.
These conversations could be from any country in the world. The Norwegian atmosphere comes from the behaviour of the characters, not from the way they talk. The plot seems obvious at times, but there’s a rather startling twist at the end of the book. It is a worthwhile read for mystery lovers.
The Indian Bride, by Karin Fossum. Translated by Charlotte Barslund. Harvest, 2008. First published in English as ‘Calling Out for You’.
Thank you for this book! It was a charming read. Mainly because Gunder is such a touching man, and Inspector Sejer is such a quiet force of nature. Unstoppable. I just wish Poona had been able to come to this little Norwegian village and try life there. That’s a novel I would love to read. I liked how open ended the novel was – things didn’t tie up. Why did Einar get rid of the suitcase? Why did the taxi driver who brought Poona lie about which way he turned? I was afraid all along Gunder was the perpetrator – for no reason other than he is the husband, and surely that makes him a prime suspect! (laugh!) Also, what about Linda Carling? We are taken so far into her mind and fantasies about Jacob Skarre, but that is left open ended too.
I wondered whether Karin Fossum was hinting that the widow of the man whom Gunder’s sister killed in the accident, might be a love interest in the future, given she was so understanding and sympathetic.
It was very Norwegian in the way the characters acted. Like Sejer with his dog – which needed tumours removing and was in such bad shape, but which recovered despite his owner’s pessimism. That whole episode was particularly Scandinavian, I thought!
I liked all the small touches – the way Linda’s mother interacted with her when Linda was sewing new buttons on the white blouse, Goran’s mother coming to tell Sejer her son could not have done the crime, which was both painful and so deluded, I esp liked the way Gunder planned, both before he met Poona and after she was dead. The letter at the end of the novel was pretty much as expected, no surprises, predictable. But still sweet and touching. A lovely little book not withstanding its credibility on the cultural cues and fronts. Enjoyed the read, thank you again!
I wonder if some of these questions are answered in other Fossum books? This is the only one I’ve read. I know they are all about Inspector Sejer, but are many set in the same small town?