Turneren

Ellise Valmoe lives in a detached house in a quiet street in Hamar, a slightly eccentric and erotically confused middleaged lady. When her secret love, Jacob Lind, dies, Elise discovers shocking new truths about him. The Hamar Police, for their part, are more surprised by the fact that this apparently decent gentleman does not appear in any public archive. But the case does not become truly suspicious until there is another death. They find the body of Elise’s friend , Edith Nyhus, in Elise’s garden. She has been sexually abused and bloodily mistreated. And in Elise’s bedroom the old painting of Jesus on the cross, so muscular and strangely attractive, hangs on the wall. The Gymnast is a thriller forged from genuine Faldbakken material, garnered from a small town’s subconscious, the erotic dredges of the mind and humanity’s eternal desire for what is beautiful and expensive.

Reviews for The Gymnast:
«Using alternating, contrasting point of views, Knut Faldbakken successfully creates a psychological suspense, and the reader is drawn into the text. And everything is embedded in realistic and evocative descriptions of place and characters. Like a true master of the
genre he catches the reader’s attention, prompting his wish to find the solution.»
Dagsavisen, Oslo

«An excellent crime story from Faldbakken’s hand – The Gymnast is a psychological delicacy.»
Aftenposten, Oslo

«It is an intensely charming small town crime novel, which in its style resembles an oldfashioned English crime mystery - but with erotic elements which would have made Agatha Christie turn in her grave.»
Dagbladet, Oslo