Before I Burn

Spring 1978: for a whole month a pyromaniac has been setting fires in Finsland, a small community outside Kristiansand, and fear is rising. Detectives from the national police have set up base with the local force in the old council chamber, but there are few clues. On one of those Sundays a baby boy is christened in Finsland church. Starting from that link, the narrator reconstructs one of the most extensive arson cases in Norwegian history. Who was the man lighting the fires, and why? And what became of the boy who has lived all his life with the story? Setting the arsonist’s story beside his own, he asks how little it takes to go under.

AI-generated summary

About the book

Form

Novel

Length

302 pages in the original

Genres

Crime, Autofiction (assigned by AI)

Set in

Norway, 1978

First published

2010 by Tiden

Author's age

32 when first published

ISBN

9788210051180 (original)

9780857892164 (Atlantic Books, United Kingdom)

9781555976613 (Graywolf Press, United States)