The Fourth Man

A well written and imaginative story. Sometimes confusing for an old lady like me but never gave up. More sex and emotional factors than any other Scandinavian police procedural, not really so necessary but didn't detract from the overall story. Perhaps to attract American readers. Back cover 'blurb' compares Dahl to Henning Mankell - no one can write like Mankell.

I've read THE FOURTH MAN, THE MAN IN THE WINDOW and THE LAST FIX. Each book is better than the last. I'm a big fan of the Wallander, Beck, Adamsberg and Sejer series and KO Dahl's series is up there with the best. Can't wait for more.

Oslo Detective Inspector Frank Frolich sees the woman leisurely walking the aisles of the shop where no customers should have been as the police are about to raid the store. He rushes inside and tackles her to the floor just a nanosecond before bullets fly. He learns the witness he saved is Elisabeth Faremo. A grateful Elisabeth begins seeing Frank, but soon learns she conned the cop as she expertly uses him as an alibi for her brother Jonny, a hood who apparently got away with murder. Already upset with Elisabeth for using him, but unable to let her go as she has him hooked; he becomes angry to learn she has another lover. His rival is university advisor Reidun Vestli. While Frank wonders about how to compete with a female for another woman's affection, someone kills Reidun and soon afterward the Faremo siblings. As his peers at the Oslo Police Department consider him the prime suspect in the three homicides, Frank uncovers a link to an art robbery, but how to prove that is the motive when the love triangle is current and obvious. This enjoyable femme fatale Danish police procedural will grip the audience from the moment Frank and Elisabeth meet as she quickly hooks him with sex. The story line is fast-paced and the key four players fully developed so that the audience understands the dysfunctional interrelationships that are keys to the plot. However that also leaves a fatal flaw as Frank's reaction to Elisabeth's murder seems to clinically cold for someone who was a slave to her sexuality; fans who can ignore this defect will enjoy THE FOURTH MAN. Harriet Klausner

One of the latest trends in mystery writing is the Scandinavian mystery series. We all remember (or some of us, who are old enough, do) the series by Maj Sjovall and Per Wahloo from back in the seventies, but since there have only been a couple of writers. Lately, though, it seems every second book in the mystery section comes from the frozen North. This current book, by Norwegian mystery writer K.O. Dahl, is apparently rather typical. Dahl is a competent writer, though his plot is a bit far-fetched. His main character, Frank Frolich, becomes involved with a witness to a violent arrest in Oslo, and soon is having a torrid affair with her. But she acts very strangely, and after a while this becomes a problem. It soon develops that she's related to a gang of criminals who are robbing Norwegian businesses, and that she used to date one of the gang. Then she vanishes, and Frolich, now under some suspicion from his colleagues, must discover what happened and what her connection to the criminal gang is. This is a reasonably good book. Foreign detective novels like this almost always, to me, have a dated feel to them, with the main character resembling Philip Marlowe or Sam Spade with a strange accent. In spite of that (or perhaps because of it) I enjoyed this book and would recommend it.