Odd Singsaker 6: Anyone can kill - Jørgen Brekke
Norwegian title: Alle kan drepe
Good morning guys!
This book is being launched today! So exciting the receive it in the mail and read it before it is out on the market! I finished just about in time, haha. Thank you Juritzen Forlag for sending it to me! For my English friends, I hope this book will be translated soon so you can read it, and keep in mind that it may not go by the name I have given it here. It is a free translation from my side and it may be altered on a later occasion.
Odd Singsaker is back! The town is the same, Trondheim, and the police are the same, Trondheim Politikammer. Singsaker was supposed to take a break for a few weeks when a curious murder is discovered out at Ila. Singsaker simply can't resist and he becomes involved in an old story where old feelings are the centre of attention. In 2014 an author gets a surprising success with a new novel completely out of his genre, and this happens just as the Trondheim Police discover the murder out at Ila.
In 1992 in Sweden, 5 young people work together during the summer. They become a somewhat odd gang due to all their personality quirks and habits. Friendships of the unlikely kind were formed and blew away when fall knocked on the door. One of the girls give the prophecy that one of the people in the gang will become a murderer before their life is over, is this just some sick game or is she serious?
It's been quite some time since I read a book in one sitting, but this one did the trick! I had read about 30 pages before I sat down last night around 8pm and I was done by 1:30am. It is so well written that the pages just turn by themselves. Odd Singsaker is rapidly becoming my favourite detective of all time, well maybe next to Inspector Foyle, but he is British, I need a Norwegian favourite too!
What I like most about this book is that I wasn't spoiled by the book. I had to read beyond the point where Singsaker connected the dots himself before I finally caught up and understood what was happening. I didn't even think about the murderer as the murderer before it was pinpointed in the book that it was that character. Even then I had a hard time comprehending how the story was connected. I enjoy this when I read a crime novel because it is no fun being spoiled at page 100 when it is 350 pages. This book is quite a psychological thriller and it is a proper brain twist, for me at least. It's hard to grasp what kind of psychology that lies behind the crimes described in this book. I thought about psychosis, and it is speculated about the same thing in the book, but I also thought about bipolar. It's not discussed in great detail, but it gives the story an interesting perspective and a possible explanation for the crimes.
The characters are as lovely as ever. I'm excited to read the other books now to get to know them even better. As you guys can see I've just jumped straight ahead to the sixth book in the story and hence I've missed some stories in between. I was pleased to see that some of the characters from the first book were still around!
As in Where Monsters Dwell Brekke does a good job discussing his own job. In Where Monsters Dwell he wrote about the 'recipe' for how to solve a murder, in this book he takes up the discussion whether or not crime novels is literature or not. I've never read an author who does this before, but it adds something different and interesting to the story. Why shouldn't crime novels be literature? I don't think I've ever met a person who would argue the point that they aren't. I have come across people who are less fan of the genre, myself included for the past few years, but not people who believe it to be a genre on the outside of literature. It would be interesting to have a debate like that at some point. The arguments presented in the book is good and I can understand why people would argue for them, yet, I like to believe that most novels belong to literature.
Apparently, another book is to be expected at some point and I'm already excited to read more about Odd Singsaker!
Published: 2018
Genre: Crime
Theme: History, friends, hate, psychology
- The Book Reader
