The Redeemer (novel)
Encyclopedia
The Redeemer is a novel by popular Norwegian crime-writer Jo Nesbø
, it is an entry in his popular and critically acclaimed Harry Hole
series.
run by the Norwegian
Salvation Army
. A young, 14-year old girl - the daughter of a senior official in the Salvation Army - is raped
in a public toilet
on the site by an un-named assailant. Due to the Salvation Army's strict hierarchical setup, she does not tell anyone about the ordeal.
Now in the present day, a hitman
calling himself Stankic from Croatia
kills a Salvation Army officer during a Christmas
street concert
. The hitman has a facial anomoly known as hyperelasticity, wherein his facial muscles can be manipulated voluntarily to stop people from recognising him. As such, despite the murder happening in a public place the Norwegian police
get little useful information regarding the murderer.
Meanwhile, the senior Police Inspector from the Oslo
Police, Bjarne Møller, retires
. As a parting gesture, he gives his three main officers, Jack Halvorsen (called Halvorsen by his colleagues), Beatte Lønn - Halvorsens girlfriend
- and Harry Hole
gifts. Harry's is a wristwatch which grows to annoy Harry due to the incessant ticking of the second-hand. At one point, he even throws it out of the window of his apartment
, though later recovers it from the packed snow
. Møller is replaced by Gunnar Hagen.
Harry, Halvorsen and Beatte are assigned to the murder of the Salvation Army officer - a man called Robert Karlsen. When a murder attempt is made on Robert's brother, Jon Karlsen it is believed that the Karlsen family is being attacked.
Harry's former girlfriend, Rakel, has now left him and is with another man, Matthias Lund-Helgesen (a major character in the next Harry Hole novel, The Snowman) and Harry meets up - and eventually begins a relationship - with Martine, the young woman who (unbeknownst to Harry) was raped at the start of the novel.
Harry finds clues that lead him to Croatia
and he makes contact with the hitman's minder
who is revealed to be the Stankic's mother. He makes a deal with her to save her son's life, but upon returning to Norway
discovers that a man wearing Stankic's clothes has been shot and killed by an armed police marksman
. The dead man's face is all but obliterated and identification is near-impossible.
There is a clue, however, in the dead man's DNA
, after Halvorsen is fatally wounded outside Jon Karlsen's flat. The blood
of the dead man does not match that of Stankic, whose blood was found at the scene of the attack on Halvorsen. Harry continues to follow Stankic, but now knows that Stankic was contracted to kill Jon Karlsen by Jon Karlsen himself. Jon switched places with his brother (the two looked very similar so Stankic did not notice the difference) in order for that murder of his brother could not be blamed on him. When in Croatia, setting up the hit, Jon had posed as Robert.
Jon is also swindling the Salvation Army out of 5,000,000 Krone
for an apartment block. On the night of an indoor Christmas concert in a concert hall, Jon Karlsen stands up his girlfriend, Thea, claiming that his father - in Singapore
- is ill and that he is going to fly out to him. Stankic and - later - Harry Hole both get the details from Thea that Jon is about to fly out of the country.
Stankic catches up with Jon Karlsen in a toilet block some distance from the main airport terminal
. Harry also catches up with the two of them there. He gets Jon Karlsen to give a full confession, stating that anything said with a gun (Stankic's) to his head is inadmissible
in court
. Jon tells everything, believing that he will be set free, but Harry instead tells Stankic that Jon's bag contains the 5,000,000 Krone and walks away. Behind him a single shot is heard.
Part of the confession includes how it was Jon Karlsen, not Stankic, who fatally wounded Halvorsen. Harry also knows that it was Jon who raped Martine some years earlier, and that he has been raping young girls regularly ever since.
Due to the high valuation
that an antique dealer puts on the watch given to him by Bjarne Møller, Harry also realises that his former boss was involved in the same group of corrupt
police officers as his former nemesis, Tom Waaler. Harry goes to Bergen
to speak with Møller but - after Møller describes that he was trying to do what was best for the Force, Harry elects not to arrest him.
, the book - called Frelseren in Norwegian
- was translated into English
by Don Bartlett
Jo Nesbø
Jo Nesbø is an Edgar Award nominated Norwegian author and musician. As of September 2008 more than one and a half million copies of his novels have been sold in Norway, and his work has been translated into over forty languages....
, it is an entry in his popular and critically acclaimed Harry Hole
Harry Hole
Harry Hole is the main character in a series of, so far, nine crime novels written by Jo Nesbø. Hole is a classic loose cannon in the police force, with few close friends and some unorthodox methods.-Character:...
series.
Plot
The Redeemer begins a number of years in the past, at a youth campSummer camp
Summer camp is a supervised program for children or teenagers conducted during the summer months in some countries. Children and adolescents who attend summer camp are known as campers....
run by the Norwegian
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
Salvation Army
Salvation Army
The Salvation Army is a Protestant Christian church known for its thrift stores and charity work. It is an international movement that currently works in over a hundred countries....
. A young, 14-year old girl - the daughter of a senior official in the Salvation Army - is raped
Rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...
in a public toilet
Toilet
A toilet is a sanitation fixture used primarily for the disposal of human excrement, often found in a small room referred to as a toilet/bathroom/lavatory...
on the site by an un-named assailant. Due to the Salvation Army's strict hierarchical setup, she does not tell anyone about the ordeal.
Now in the present day, a hitman
Hitman
A hitman is a person hired to kill another person.- Hitmen in organized crime :Hitmen are largely linked to the world of organized crime. Hitmen are hired people who kill people for money. Notable examples include Murder, Inc., Mafia hitmen and Richard Kuklinski.- Other cases involving hitmen...
calling himself Stankic from Croatia
Croatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
kills a Salvation Army officer during a Christmas
Christmas
Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...
street concert
Concert
A concert is a live performance before an audience. The performance may be by a single musician, sometimes then called a recital, or by a musical ensemble, such as an orchestra, a choir, or a musical band...
. The hitman has a facial anomoly known as hyperelasticity, wherein his facial muscles can be manipulated voluntarily to stop people from recognising him. As such, despite the murder happening in a public place the Norwegian police
Norwegian Police Service
The Norwegian Police Service is the official police force in Norway which are run by the Minister of Justice and Police. The department consists of 27 regional areas and seven national special forces. The department has about 11,000 employees....
get little useful information regarding the murderer.
Meanwhile, the senior Police Inspector from the Oslo
Oslo
Oslo is a municipality, as well as the capital and most populous city in Norway. As a municipality , it was established on 1 January 1838. Founded around 1048 by King Harald III of Norway, the city was largely destroyed by fire in 1624. The city was moved under the reign of Denmark–Norway's King...
Police, Bjarne Møller, retires
Retirement
Retirement is the point where a person stops employment completely. A person may also semi-retire by reducing work hours.Many people choose to retire when they are eligible for private or public pension benefits, although some are forced to retire when physical conditions don't allow the person to...
. As a parting gesture, he gives his three main officers, Jack Halvorsen (called Halvorsen by his colleagues), Beatte Lønn - Halvorsens girlfriend
Girlfriend
Girlfriend is a term that can refer to either a female partner in a non-marital romantic relationship or a female non-romantic friend that is closer than other friends....
- and Harry Hole
Harry Hole
Harry Hole is the main character in a series of, so far, nine crime novels written by Jo Nesbø. Hole is a classic loose cannon in the police force, with few close friends and some unorthodox methods.-Character:...
gifts. Harry's is a wristwatch which grows to annoy Harry due to the incessant ticking of the second-hand. At one point, he even throws it out of the window of his apartment
Apartment
An apartment or flat is a self-contained housing unit that occupies only part of a building...
, though later recovers it from the packed snow
Snow
Snow is a form of precipitation within the Earth's atmosphere in the form of crystalline water ice, consisting of a multitude of snowflakes that fall from clouds. Since snow is composed of small ice particles, it is a granular material. It has an open and therefore soft structure, unless packed by...
. Møller is replaced by Gunnar Hagen.
Harry, Halvorsen and Beatte are assigned to the murder of the Salvation Army officer - a man called Robert Karlsen. When a murder attempt is made on Robert's brother, Jon Karlsen it is believed that the Karlsen family is being attacked.
Harry's former girlfriend, Rakel, has now left him and is with another man, Matthias Lund-Helgesen (a major character in the next Harry Hole novel, The Snowman) and Harry meets up - and eventually begins a relationship - with Martine, the young woman who (unbeknownst to Harry) was raped at the start of the novel.
Harry finds clues that lead him to Croatia
Croatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
and he makes contact with the hitman's minder
Minder
A minder is a person assigned to guide or escort a visitor, or to provide protection to somebody, or to otherwise assist or take care of something, i.e...
who is revealed to be the Stankic's mother. He makes a deal with her to save her son's life, but upon returning to Norway
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
discovers that a man wearing Stankic's clothes has been shot and killed by an armed police marksman
Marksman
A marksman is a person who is skilled in precision, or a sharpshooter shooting, using projectile weapons, such as with a rifle but most commonly with a sniper rifle, to shoot at long range targets...
. The dead man's face is all but obliterated and identification is near-impossible.
There is a clue, however, in the dead man's DNA
DNA
Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms . The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in...
, after Halvorsen is fatally wounded outside Jon Karlsen's flat. The blood
Blood
Blood is a specialized bodily fluid in animals that delivers necessary substances such as nutrients and oxygen to the cells and transports metabolic waste products away from those same cells....
of the dead man does not match that of Stankic, whose blood was found at the scene of the attack on Halvorsen. Harry continues to follow Stankic, but now knows that Stankic was contracted to kill Jon Karlsen by Jon Karlsen himself. Jon switched places with his brother (the two looked very similar so Stankic did not notice the difference) in order for that murder of his brother could not be blamed on him. When in Croatia, setting up the hit, Jon had posed as Robert.
Jon is also swindling the Salvation Army out of 5,000,000 Krone
Krone
-General:* Crown * ADC KRONE, formerly The KRONE Group, a German telecommunications company acquired by ADC Telecommunications* KRONE LSA-PLUS, a popular telecommunications connector* Krone an der Brahe, the German name for Koronowo, Poland...
for an apartment block. On the night of an indoor Christmas concert in a concert hall, Jon Karlsen stands up his girlfriend, Thea, claiming that his father - in Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
- is ill and that he is going to fly out to him. Stankic and - later - Harry Hole both get the details from Thea that Jon is about to fly out of the country.
Stankic catches up with Jon Karlsen in a toilet block some distance from the main airport terminal
Airport terminal
An airport terminal is a building at an airport where passengers transfer between ground transportation and the facilities that allow them to board and disembark from aircraft....
. Harry also catches up with the two of them there. He gets Jon Karlsen to give a full confession, stating that anything said with a gun (Stankic's) to his head is inadmissible
Inadmissible Evidence
Inadmissible Evidence is a play written by John Osborne in November 1964. It was also filmed in 1968.The protagonist of the play is William Maitland, a middle-aged English solicitor who has come to hate his entire life. Much of the play consists of lengthy monologues in which Maitland tells the...
in court
Court
A court is a form of tribunal, often a governmental institution, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between parties and carry out the administration of justice in civil, criminal, and administrative matters in accordance with the rule of law...
. Jon tells everything, believing that he will be set free, but Harry instead tells Stankic that Jon's bag contains the 5,000,000 Krone and walks away. Behind him a single shot is heard.
Part of the confession includes how it was Jon Karlsen, not Stankic, who fatally wounded Halvorsen. Harry also knows that it was Jon who raped Martine some years earlier, and that he has been raping young girls regularly ever since.
Due to the high valuation
Valuation
-Economics:*Valuation , the determination of the economic value of an asset or liability**Real estate appraisal, sometimes called property valuation , the appraisal of land or buildings...
that an antique dealer puts on the watch given to him by Bjarne Møller, Harry also realises that his former boss was involved in the same group of corrupt
Corruption
Corruption usually refers to spiritual or moral impurity.Corruption may also refer to:* Corruption , an American crime film* Corruption , a British horror film...
police officers as his former nemesis, Tom Waaler. Harry goes to Bergen
Bergen
Bergen is the second largest city in Norway with a population of as of , . Bergen is the administrative centre of Hordaland county. Greater Bergen or Bergen Metropolitan Area as defined by Statistics Norway, has a population of as of , ....
to speak with Møller but - after Møller describes that he was trying to do what was best for the Force, Harry elects not to arrest him.
English Translation
As with previous Harry Hole novels by Jo NesbøJo Nesbø
Jo Nesbø is an Edgar Award nominated Norwegian author and musician. As of September 2008 more than one and a half million copies of his novels have been sold in Norway, and his work has been translated into over forty languages....
, the book - called Frelseren in Norwegian
Norwegian language
Norwegian is a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is the official language. Together with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional variants .These Scandinavian languages together with the Faroese language...
- was translated into English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
by Don Bartlett
Don Bartlett
Donald "Don" Bartlett is a Canadian curler from Edmonton, Alberta.Until April 26, 2006, Barlett played lead for Kevin Martin....