Book
The fifth element / Jorgen Brekke ; translated by Steven T. Murray.
Police Inspector Odd Singsaker has been captured, imprisoned on an island off the Northern coast of Norway. He wakes to find himself holding a shotgun. Next to him is a corpse. But what events led him to this point? And how did he get here? A few weeks earlier, Felicia, his wife, disappeared. Though he didn’t know it, she was trying to find her way back to Odd to reconcile, but then she vanished into a snowstorm. Possibly involved is a corrupt, coldblooded cop from Oslo, a devious college student who’s stolen a great deal of cocaine from drug dealers, and a hit man hired by the drug dealers who have been robbed. All of these lives intersect with Odd’s as he searches for Felicia. The Fifth Element is ultimately the story of what happened to Felicia Stone. Within that journey, brutal crimes are uncovered, tenacious love shines through, and chilling characters with nothing to lose will stop at nothing to get what they want. Jorgen Brekke once again delivers a chilling thriller that readers will tear through to unravel what happened-and why.
Record details
- ISBN: 9781250073914
- Physical Description: 314 pages ; 25 cm
- Edition: First U.S. edition.
- Publisher: New York : Minotaur Books, 2017.
- Copyright: ©2017.
Content descriptions
| Language Note: | Translated from the Norwegian. |
Search for related items by subject
| Subject: | Singsaker, Odd (Fictitious character) > Fiction. Detectives > Norway > Fiction. Murder > Investigation > Fiction. Missing persons > Norway > Fiction. Wives > Norway > Fiction. Trondheim (Norway) > Fiction. |
| Genre: | Mystery fiction. Detective and mystery fiction. Norwegian fiction. |
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Available copies
- 8 of 8 copies available at BC Interlibrary Connect. (Show)
- 1 of 1 copy available at Smithers Public Library.
Holds
- 0 current holds with 8 total copies.
Show Only Available Copies
| Location | Call Number / Copy Notes | Barcode | Shelving Location | Holdable? | Status | Due Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Smithers Public Library | F BRE (Text) | 35101000520176 | Adult Fiction | Volume hold | Available | - |
- Booklist Reviews : Booklist Reviews 2016 December #2
In the third Odd Singsaker novel (after Dreamless, 2015), Brekke weaves a seemingly disparate set of subplots into a tale of deadly opportunism. Trondheim DI Singsaker's wife, Felicia Stone, becomes prey when she witnesses a killer's escape from a crime scene. As Felicia dodges the killer through a frozen Norwegian forest, Odd tries to convince his colleagues that she's in danger. Hoping to enlist his friend Jensen to help search for Felicia, Odd tags along on Jensen's investigations into a law student's murder and the robbery of an elderly landlord. While Jensen's cases intersect and draw them toward a fishing cabin in Hitra, Felicia is captured by the killer and also brought to Hitra. Weeks later, Odd faces an internal-affairs investigation into three killings in Hitra, and the stories converge in his gripping recollection. The plot's leapfrogging flashbacks are challenging to follow, but Felicia's fight for survival, the suspense building to the final catastrophe, and the starkly rendered Scandinavian atmosphere offer strong appeal for Nordic-crime fans. Copyright 2016 Booklist Reviews. - Kirkus Reviews : Kirkus Reviews 2016 December #2
Forgoing the historical excursions that tangled the first two cases of Trondheim's Inspector Odd Singsaker (Dreamless, 2015, etc.), Brekke mingles the immediate past, present, and future to produce an even more tangled, but deeply rewarding, tale. The story begins, sort of, with Singsaker standing in a burned-out room somewhere in the north of Norway, ordered at gunpoint to pick up a shotgun lying at his feet, next to a corpse. An investigation conducted by Internal Affairs Officer Kurt Melhus will focus not only on what happened next, but on why Singsaker, who's on sick leave, ever got involved in the case. The short answer is that he's been trying to find out what happened to his wife, American ex-cop Felicia Stone, a recovering alcoholic who ran off but has been trying to make her way back to her husband. Cutting freely backward and forward over a kaleidoscopic period of several crucial weeks, Brekke interleaves the stories of Felicia and Singsaker with those of dirty Narc otics cop Rolf Fagerhus, fatally indebted cocaine addict Knut Andersen Stang, and an enforcer for drug lord Geir Karlstad who calls himself Sving. Although each plot strand includes felonies aplenty, few readers will figure out the connections among them before the author sees fit to reveal them as the quintessence, the ethereal fifth element that supplements the four ancient elements of black bile, yellow bile, phlegm, and blood. The intricately linked plotlines will appeal to puzzle fans. But it's Brekke's prodigious powers of invention, his ability to keep coming up with unforgettable characters and indelible episodes, that lift this above his own earlier work and most of the heavy Nordic competition. Copyright Kirkus 2016 Kirkus/BPI Communications. All rights reserved. - Library Journal Reviews : LJ Reviews 2017 January #1
What happened to Felicia Stone, and did her husband, Norwegian cop Odd Singsaker, have something to do with it? That's the question at the heart of Brekke's third book featuring Singsaker (after
Copyright 2017 Library Journal.Dreamless ), which opens with the Trondheim detective waking up on an island off the coast of Norway with no memory of how he got there, why he has a shotgun, and why there's a corpse next to him. - Publishers Weekly Reviews : PW Reviews 2016 December #1
Set in northern Norway around Trondheim, Brekke's stellar third installment in his Odd Singsaker homicide detective series (after 2015's Dreamless) is divided into four sections. Each part centers on one of the lead characters, and each is named for one of the Aristotelian elementsâphlegm, black bile, blood, and yellow bileâonce thought to ensure good health when in balance in the body. This narrative device is initially perplexing, but it all makes perfect sense in the end. Police inspector Singsaker, who's on medical leave after being wounded in a previous case, is suffering from the postsurgical effects of a brain tumor that will eventually recur and kill him. His American wife, Felicia, vanished weeks earlier, and readers must assemble the puzzle of her fate piece by often gruesome piece, up to a shockingly ironic close. Violence seems to be rapidly getting worse in today's relatively peaceful Norway, Singsaker concludes. For him, the horrors of this caseâwhich involves drugs, extortion, and spousal abuseâoutdo even the murderous exploits of the ancient Viking period. Agent: Nicole K. James, Chalberg & Sussman. (Feb.) Copyright 2016 Publisher Weekly.
