Why a Booktrail?
2000s: Inspector Konrad Sejer heads to Kirkelina, Norway
The Whisperer (Inspector Sejer)
What you need to know before your trail
Ragna Riegel still lives in her childhood home. She’s alone in the world since her only son moved to Berlin. She longs to hear from him.
Ragna lives her life within strict self-imposed limits: she sits in the same seat on the bus every day, on her way to her predictable job. On her way home she always visits the same local shop. She feels safe in her routine, until one day she receives a letter with a threatening message scrawled in capital letters. An unknown enemy has entered her world and she must use all her means to defend herself.
When the worst happens, Inspector Konrad Sejer is called in to interrogate Ragna. Is this unassuming woman out of her depth, or is she hiding a dark secret?
Travel Guide
“Kirkelina”, Norway
The fictional village in the novel where Ragna has been left a house. It’s some forty minutes from where she works in the supermarket. It’s also where she goes to Irfan’s shop and because it’s always open she thinks he must sleep on a mattress out of the back. When the bell jingles on the door,he jumps and this makes her laugh.
It’s here that a letter arrives and at first she assumes that it’s one of those dropped into every mailbox in the town, on “the street that ran from the spinning factory to the church.” Kirkelina is a town with an immigrant population and this is a theme in the novel.
Kirkelina: The houses were old , built in the thirties and forties, and many of the inhabitants were alone. No families with young children ore rebellious children that she knew of.” Ragna knows few people here and a sense of loneliness and isolation permeate her character and the novel at large.
BookTrail Boarding Pass: The Whisperer
Destination: “Kirkelina” Norway Author/guide: Karin Fosum Departure Time: 2000s
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