Written in 1997 by Jo Nesbo, but translated in 2012 by Don Bartlett, "The Bat" is the first Inspector Harry Hole book, as mentioned on the cover. Quite nice of them to tell you that, eh? They make a point of mentioning it as "The Redbreast" ,the third Harry Hole novel, was the first to come out in English. The second novel came out on February 11th, 2014, titled Cockroaches, which will be written about here later. But back to the story at hand.
Harry Hole, pronounced Hole-eh, yet in this book pronounced Holy, has been called to Australia to solve a murder case. A young Norwegian woman, Inger Holter, has been murdered, and Harry has been called in to solve the case. Throughout the book we begin to get some back story on Harry, including his abstinence from alcohol. Picked up from the airport by Andrew Kensington Harry is thrust into Australian culture rather quickly. Through sweltering weather Harry has to adapt rather quickly. Instruction from the Royal Norwegian Police Force is to stay out of the way of the local police department, but to "help" solve the case. I find it rather interesting that this is the norm. If an American were to be killed in Australia would the American Embassy call in someone to help solve the case? As it stands the Australian/Sydney police force is most likely trying to save face.
Harry jumps on the case, seemingly none too excited to be there, bringing into questions why he was the one sent on this mission, but nonetheless being as good a detective as he can be. Andrew is Harry's assigned liaison and general sidekick, a large aboriginal man who used to be a boxer and a generally fit man. He has transcended the normal societal constraints faced by most Aboriginals and works for the police force as a detective. The first stop for Harry and Andrew is to examine the body of Inger. Found on the cliffs, her body smashed and battered there is not much to be seen. Harry is informed that it appears she was raped before she was killed, but given the condition they found her there is no evidence to be found. If there was evidence Harry would not have been called from Oslo. Certain information about Inger is, including her place of work, and her partner, a Evans White.
Harry visits Ingers place of employment, a bar/restaurant, where he meets Birgitta Enquist , one of Ingers coworkers whom he gathers precious information from, especially concerning Evans White. As it turns out Evans White is a small time drug pusher who lives in a different part of Australia, which takes Andrew and Harry a considerable amount of time to travel to. I'm not very familiar with the size of Australia, and this book did not especially help with that. When Harry and Andrew travel to investigate Evans, whom Harry is convinced must be the murderer, they find little information about the small times drug dealer. They know that he and his mother moved to Australia after her divorce, that she sells awful hippy knickknacks, and that Evans White has no alibi for the night of Ingers death. Evans claims that Inger was not much of a girlfriend in his opine, and that she was simple a fling. He would visit her when he came in Sydney, but that was about it.
During this time Harry and Andrew have spent increasing time at the bar Inger worked out, meeting all sorts of characters. The bar introduces Harry more to Birgitta Enquist, whom he asks on a date, and whom he develops a very emotional relationship. Through Birgitta we get more of Harry's back story, which, having been following Harry, we learn he was an alcoholic. To me this was not surprising, and it wasn't to Birgitta either. Harry only order cranberry juice, so it more or less makes sense. Their relationship grows, stronger and stronger, and one would say they love another. There is a lesson to be taught that once you have something to lose, you just might. We also learn that Harry realized his problems with alcohol while he was drinking on duty, he was drunk his partner was in the car with them, and they sped off to chase a suspect. Harry is driving and crashes the car killing his partner. All the reports list Harry as the passenger, and he is restricted from telling anyone the truth that eats away at him. Due to this he gives up drinking, but bears the weight of his partners death everyday.
But at the Aubrey Hotel, where the bar is that Inger worked, whose name I just remembered, we meet all sorts of characters. Otto Rechtnagel is a rather flamboyant man who is in a traveling circus that is in town at the time. He frequents the Aubrey Hotel as much as Harry, and attempts many times to flirt with him. Otto, a large masculine man, whom I would love to see in drag, knew Inger well, and quickly comes under suspicion of Harry Hole.
Harry, being a man of conviction, digs deeper into the mystery at hand. What he discovers, is that this murder seems to be a part of a larger string of rape murders, all happening to blonde haired women, of Norwegian descent. It seems like we have a serial killer on our hands. A very careful one at that. Looking that distribution of the killings on map does not lend anything at first, a mystery it seems.
Some strange things happen, Harry in an attempt to gather more information on Evans questions some drug dealers, who beat the hell out of him, only to be saved by Andrew Kensington stepping in. His boxing prowess come out, but Andrew winds up in the hospital. Harry learns of Andrews history as a boxer when he takes Harry to see a boxing match of the Jim Chivers boxing team. Here Harry meets Robin Tawoomba, an old friend of Andrews, and a friend of Otto. Circles seem to collide now, and for good reason. Harry is invited to see the circus Otto is in, with an amazingly convincing guillotine scene. Otto seemingly gets his head chopped off, the audience screams in panic, and since Otto is dressed a blonde Scandinavian woman, Harry panics as well. He wonders, is Otto toying with him, admitting to being the killer, or is Otto trying to tell Harry that he knows who the killer is? Otto comes back on stage, the audience is assuaged, but Harry still has a pit in his stomach forming.
Harry then begins to link the path of the circus with the murders, and sees that they are shockingly close, with a few minor discrepancies. This tells Harry that Otto must know something, or may in fact be the killer himself. Harry goes into the hospital to see Andrew, knowing the he and Otto are good friends, and brings up these points. Andrew gets frantic, attempting to warn Harry not to be bring Otto in, but given his condition he can't quite seem to get out what he wants to say.
Harry goes to the circus again, this time not to see the show, but to arrest Otto, or to question him. He goes to find Otto after his performance, but finds his dressing empty. Harry begins to hunt for Otto, to find him killed by the guillotine blade. Not a fake death this time, but a real one. Harry now doesn't know whether Otto was the killer, or simply knew something of who the killer was. At this point Evans has been more or less cleared, and the trail goes a bit cold.
The next day Harry, and another detective from the Sydney Police, go to check out Ottos apartment. When they open the door they find Andrew hanging by an electrical wire. He seemingly overdosed and hung himself. Harry is immediately suspicious and we see his detective brain working. The light switch was off when they entered, which means either Andrew overdosed and hung himself in the dark, or he was killed. Harry just about loses it now. His second partner to be killed, Harry goes on a binge drinking fiasco. He finds himself in the same location where the drug dealers had to brutally beaten Andrew and him, this time drunk off his rocker, and discovers that Andrew was a regular dependable user. Buying small quantities at a time, and keeping a regular use of meth. So it is unlikely that he would have accidentally overdosed. Harry, in a ridiculous drunken mess, attempts to do more detective work, meeting up with a hooker who knew Andrew and Otto well. Birgitta goes to surprise Harry at his hotel, but finds him a drunken mess with a hooker, things don't go well and there is a large argument. Harry gets kicked out his hotel, and he drunkenly stumbles, bottle in hand, until he finds a suitable cheap hotel to stay in.
One would think that the trail had gone cold, Harry as drunk of a mess that he is, but amazingly his mental faculties are still intact. He makes some small progress, and manages to sober up a bit. Birgitta forgives him, and the case picks up again. In a last ditch attempt to get more information from Evans, Harry gets the Sydney police to set Birgitta up as an operative to get more information from Evans, having her claim that she knows information Inger told her. The operation is unsuccessful, as Birgitta goes missing. Also part of the plan was since Birgitta is a blonde Norwegian woman herself, if Evans was indeed an insatiable serial killer, he would go for her as well. The hope was to nail Evans on some drug charges, and to scalp information from him while he was detained.
So now Birgitta is missing, and Harry's love is gone. Uh-oh. Harry, having been suspicious of Tawoomba, which in my opinion came out of left field, and was rather annoying, calls Tawoomba who admits to all the killings over the phone, but as serial killers do, still wants to play games. With Birgitta's life on the line Harry and the police rush to Tawoombas apartment. A home alert goes off, and Tawoomba will know that someone has entered his apartment. A picture of a boat is discovered after it has been realized that Birgitta is not in the apartment, and they head out to find it. Tawoomba calls Harry and toys with him a bit more, but by the time Harry makes it to the boat he discovers Birgitta dead. Through Tawoombas phone they track him to the Sidney Aquarium, a chase ensues through aquarium ending with Tawoomba getting shot in the leg and falling into a carnivorous shark tank.
Mystery solved, Harry heads home to Norway, a heroes welcome and his name in the paper.
The book was certainly a no holds barred thriller. Quick to read, as the pages want to fly through your fingertips to discover the next thing, the biggest limitation I saw was that Tawoomba being the killer came out of left field. We weren't allowed to draw the line ourselves, and with Harry through his drunken stupor, maybe we had some unreliable narrator bits and it was lost. But the fact that the boxing troupe followed the circus, and that Tawoomba and Otto were lovers just wasn't reader solvable, and I like to solve puzzles. His seconds book Cockroaches had less of a surprise killer. With the bread crumbs you could pick up, instead of chunks of bread flying at you like in this book. But, it was a great read and I am truly happy that I got to blast through it.
© JKloor 2014 Books