The redbreast

Early in THE REDBREAST (Harper/HarperCollins, $24.95), an elegant and complex thriller by the Norwegian musician, economist and crime writer Jo Nesbo, an old man who has just received a death sentence from his doctor goes into the palace gardens in Oslo and kills an ancient oak tree. "Yes!" you think. "What a terrible act, but what wonderful symbolism!" And you'll be amazed when, hundreds of pages later, the real reason for the aboricide is revealed, along with the answers to other seemingly minor mysteries (including the significance of the title) that figure in the novel's ingenious design. The engineering of the interlocking plot pieces is intricate because it has to support Nesbo's complicated ideas - and dire thoughts - about Norwegian nationalism, past and present. While giving his ambitious book the form of a police procedural, featuring Harry Hole, an attractive if familiarly flawed loose cannon of a cop, the author expands his street-level subplots into a narrative that reaches all the way back to World War II, when Norway was under German occupation. There's a pattern to the various criminal activities Hole investigates, from the black-market sale of a German semiautomatic hunting rifle ("the ultimate professional murder weapon") to the "fascist nests" of neo-Nazis who can be counted on to disrupt most national holidays. But the pattern doesn't emerge until the detective investigates the present-day lives and past histories of a group of war veterans, among the many Norwegians who volunteered to fight against the Russians on the Eastern front and were later denounced as traitors. Told in flashbacks, the parallel story of their forgotten war begins in a trench in 1942, develops in harrowingly beautiful scenes of harsh wartime suffering and ends in 1945 with mass executions in Oslo. Pristinely translated by Don Bartlett, Nesbo's book eloquently uses its multiple horrors to advance a disturbing argument: suppressing history is an open invitation for history to repeat itself. For sheer likability, no private eye comes close to Sue Grafton's endearing California sleuth, Kinsey Millhone, who has been making friends with readers for more than two decades. Settling into T IS FOR TRESPASS (Marian Wood/Putnam, $26.95), the 20th mystery in an evergreen series, first means making sure that all's right in Kinsey's world. Is it still the 1980s in Santa Teresa? Check. Is she still renting a studio apartment from her octogenarian landlord, Henry - and is Henry still baking bread? Check and check. Now for the kicker: Does she still have her warm heart and wicked sense of humor? Absolutely. Just because Kinsey is adorable doesn't make her a pushover, and the issue she takes up here - criminal negligence and abuse of the elderly - is as serious as it is ugly. Gus Vronsky, a cranky old neighbor, has a bad fall at Christmastime, and his greatniece from New York hires a licensed vocational nurse named Solana Rojas to take care of him, after first hiring Kinsey to check her credentials. But aside from noticing that "there's something creepy about her," Kinsey doesn't know what we do (from chapters told from the caretaker's perspective) - namely that "Solana" stole her identity and has evil plans for Gus. For all its familiar comforts, this is one sad, tough book. Ian Rutledge, the Scotland Yard man in Charles Todd's outstanding series of historical mysteries, has a wonderful capacity for compassion - a quality this shell-shocked (and guilt-ridden) World War I veteran acquired over four hellish years in the battlefields of France. That heightened sensibility comes into play in A PALE HORSE (Morrow, $23.95), when the War Office orders Rutledge to locate an eccentric scientist who has disappeared from his secluded cottage in Berkshire. In penetrating interviews with the scientist's reclusive neighbors, Rutledge comes to realize that they're all emotionally wounded outcasts of society ("lepers, without the sores") and that many of the secrets they're guarding go back to the Great War. Even the huge prehistoric animal carved into the whitechalk cliffs above the cottages reminds one tenant of the cloud of poison gas that passed over Ypres like "a great horse moving across a barren meadow." However they apportion their literary chores, the mother and son who write together as Charles Todd clearly share an affinity for quiet souls haunted by unquiet memories. Runaway capitalism can be held accountable for a multitude of social sins, but can it be blamed for the acts of a serial killer? That's one of the many intriguing questions posed by the poet and translator Qiu Xiaolong in his latest Inspector Chen mystery, RED MANDARIN DRESS (St. Martin's Minotaur, $24.95). The erudite Shanghai detective (who writes romantic poetry to clear his head) has to postpone his participation in an intensive course in classical Chinese literature when murder victims wearing identical mandarin dresses begin turning up around the city. Are these aberrant crimes somehow linked to modern China's struggle to contain the widespread corruption that accompanies unregulated economic growth? You bet. But the novel also contains pertinent references to the huge ideological upheaval of the Cultural Revolution - a subject that's never far from the surface in this intelligent series - along with many poignant hints that once it's lost, a country's cultural identity can never be restored. Jo Nesbo's thriller takes us back to World War II and the German occupation of his native country.

1 Toll Barrier at Alnabru. 1 November 1999. A grey bird glided in and out of Harry's field of vision. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. Slow time. Somebody had been talking about 'slow time' on TV yesterday. This was slow time. Like on Christmas Eve before Father Christmas came. Or sitting in the electric chair before the current was turned on. He drummed harder. They were parked in the open area behind the ticket booths at the toll gate. Ellen turned up the radio a notch. The commentator spoke with reverence and solemnity. 'The plane landed fifty minutes ago, and at exactly 6.38 a.m. the President set foot on Norwegian soil. He was welcomed by the Mayor of Ullensaker. It is a wonderful autumn day here in Oslo: a splendid Norwegian backdrop to this summit meeting. Let us hear again what the President said at the press conference half an hour ago.' It was the third time. Again Harry saw the screaming press corps thronging against the barrier. The men in grey suits on the other side, who made only a halfhearted attempt not to look like Secret Service agents, hunched their shoulders and then relaxed them as they scanned the crowd, checked for the twelfth time that their earpieces were correctly positioned, scanned the crowd, dwelled for a few seconds on a photographer whose telephoto lens was a little too long, continued scanning, checked for the thirteenth time that their earpieces were in position. Someone welcomed the President in English, everything went quiet. Then a scratching noise in a microphone. 'First, let me say I'm delighted to be here . . .' the President said for the fourth time in husky, broad American-English. 'I read that a well-known American psychologist thinks the President has an MPD,' Ellen said. 'MPD?' 'Multiple Personality Disorder. Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. The psychologist thought his normal personality was not aware that the other one, the sex beast, was having relations with all these women. And that was why a Court of Impeachment couldn't accuse him of having lied under oath about it.' 'Jesus,' Harry said, looking up at the helicopter hovering high above them. On the radio, someone speaking with a Norwegian accent asked, 'Mr President, this is the fourth visit to Norway by a sitting US President. How does it feel?' Pause. 'It's really nice to be back here. And I see it as even more important that the leaders of the state of Israel and of the Palestinian people can meet here. The key to --' 'Can you remember anything from your previous visit to Norway, Mr President?' 'Yes, of course. In today's talks I hope that we can --' 'What significance have Oslo and Norway had for world peace, Mr President?' 'Norway has played an important role.' A voice without a Norwegian accent: 'What concrete results does the President consider to be realistic?' The recording was cut and someone from the studio took over. 'We heard there the President saying that Norway has had a crucial role in . . . er, the Middle Eastern peace process. Right now the President is on his way to --' Harry groaned and switched off the radio. 'What is it with this country, Ellen?' She shrugged her shoulders. 'Passed Post 27,' the walkie-talkie on the dashboard crackled. He looked at her. 'Everyone ready at their posts?' he asked. She nodded. 'Here we go,' he said. She rolled her eyes. It was the fifth time he had said that since the procession set off from Gardemoen Airport. From where they were parked they could see the empty motorway stretch out from the toll barrier up towards Trosterud and Furuset. The blue light on the roof rotated sluggishly. Harry rolled down the car window to stick out his hand and remove a withered yellow leaf caught under the windscreen wiper. 'A robin redbreast,' Ellen said, pointing. 'Rare to see one so late in autumn.' 'Where?' 'There. On the roof of the toll booth.' Harry lowered his head and peered through the windscreen. 'Oh yes. So that's a robin redbreast?' 'Yep. But you probably can't tell the difference between that and a redwing, I imagine?' 'Right.' Harry shaded his eyes. Was he becoming short-sighted? 'It's a rare bird, the redbreast,' Ellen said, screwing the top back on the thermos. 'Is that a fact?' Harry said. 'Ninety per cent of them migrate south. A few take the risk, as it were, and stay here.' 'As it were? ' Another crackle on the radio: 'Post 62 to HQ. There's an unmarked car parked by the road two hundred metres before the turn-off for Lørenskog.' A deep voice with a Bergen accent answered from HQ: 'One moment, 62. We'll look into it.' Silence. 'Did you check the toilets?' Harry asked, nodding towards the Esso station. 'Yes, the petrol station has been cleared of all customers and employees. Everyone except the boss. We've locked him in his office.' 'Toll booths as well?' 'Done. Relax, Harry, all the checks have been done. Yes, the ones that stay do so in the hope that it will be a mild winter, right? That may be OK, but if they're wrong, they die. So why not head south, just in case, you might be wondering. Are they just lazy, the birds that stay?' Harry looked in the mirror and saw the guards on either side of the railway bridge. Dressed in black with helmets and MP5 machine guns hanging around their necks. Even from where he was he could see the tension in their body language. 'The point is that if it's a mild winter, they can choose the best nesting places before the others return,' Ellen said, while trying to stuff the thermos into the already full glove compartment. 'It's a calculated risk, you see. You're either laughing all over your face or you're in deep, deep shit. Whether to take the risk or not. If you take the gamble, you may fall off the twig frozen stiff one night and not thaw out till spring. Bottle it and you might not have anywhere to nest when you return. These are, as it were, the eternal dilemmas you're confronted with.' 'You've got body armour on, haven't you?' Harry twisted round to check. 'Have you or haven't you?' She tapped her chest with her knuckles by way of reply. 'Lightweight?' She nodded. 'For fuck's sake, Ellen! I gave the order for ballistic vests to be worn. Not those Mickey Mouse vests.' 'Do you know what the Secret Service guys use?' 'Let me guess. Lightweight vests?' 'That's right.' 'Do you know what I don't give a shit about?' 'Let me guess. The Secret Service?' 'That's right.' She laughed. Harry managed a smile too. There was a crackle from the radio. 'HQ to post 62. The Secret Service say it's their car parked on the turn-off to Lørenskog.' 'Post 62. Message received.' 'You see,' Harry said, banging the steering wheel in irritation, 'no communication. The Secret Service people do their own thing. What's that car doing up there without our knowledge? Eh?' 'Checking that we're doing our job,' Ellen said. 'According to the instructions they gave us.' 'You'll be allowed to make some decisions, so stop grumbling,' she said. 'And stop that drumming on the wheel.' Harry's hands obediently leapt into his lap. She smiled. He let out one long stream of air: 'Yeah, yeah, yeah.' His fingers found the butt of his service revolver, a .38 calibre Smith & Wesson, six shots. In his belt he had two additional magazines, each holding six shots. He patted the revolver, knowing that, strictly speaking, he wasn't actually authorised to carry a weapon. Perhaps he really was becoming short-sighted; after the forty-hour course last winter he had failed the shooting test. Although that was not so unusual, it was the first time it had happened to Harry and he didn't like it at all. All he had to do was take the test again -- many had to take it four or five times -- but for one reason or another Harry continued to put it off. More crackling noises: 'Passed point 28.' 'One more point to go in the Romerike police district,' Harry said. 'The next one is Karihaugen and then it's us.' 'Why can't they do it how we used to? Just say where the motorcade is instead of all these stupid numbers,' Ellen asked in a grumbling tone. 'Guess.' They answered in unison: 'The Secret Service!' And laughed. 'Passed point 29.' He looked at his watch. 'OK, they'll be here in three minutes. I'll change the frequency on the walkie-talkie to Oslo police district. Run the final checks.' Ellen closed her eyes to concentrate on the positive checks that came back one after the other. She put the microphone back into position. 'Everything in place and ready.' 'Thanks. Put your helmet on.' 'Eh? Honestly, Harry.' 'You heard what I said.' 'Put your helmet on yourself !' 'Mine's too small.' A new voice. 'Passed point 1.' 'Oh shit, sometimes you're just so . . . unprofessional.' Ellen pulled the helmet over her head, fastened the chin strap and made faces in the driving mirror. 'Love you too,' said Harry, studying the road in front of them through binoculars. 'I can see them.' At the top of the incline leading to Karihaugen the sun glinted off metal. For the moment Harry could only see the first car in the motorcade, but he knew the order: six motorcycles from the Norwegian police escort department, two Norwegian police escort cars, a Secret Service car, then two identical Cadillac Fleetwoods (special Secret Service cars flown in from the US) and the President sitting in one of them. Which one was kept secret. Or perhaps he was sitting in both, Harry thought. One for Jekyll and one for Hyde. Then came the bigger vehicles: ambulance, communications car and several Secret Service cars. 'Everything seems quiet enough,' Harry said. His binoculars moved slowly from right to left. The air quivered above the tarmac even though it was a cool November morning. Ellen could see the outline of the first car. In thirty seconds they would have passed the toll gates and half the job would be over. And in two days' time, when the same cars had passed the toll going in the opposite direction, she and Harry could go back to their usual work. She preferred dealing with dead people in the Serious Crime Unit to getting up at three in the morning to sit in a cold Volvo with an irritable Harry, who was clearly burdened by the responsibility he had been given. Apart from Harry's regular breathing, there was total quiet in the car. She checked that the light indicators on both radios were green. The motorcade was almost at the bottom of the hill. She decided she would go to Tørst and get drunk after the job. There was a guy there she had exchanged looks with; he had black curls and brown, slightly dangerous eyes. Lean. Looked a bit bohemian, intellectual. Perhaps . . . 'What the --' Harry had already grabbed the microphone. 'There's someone in the third booth from the left. Can anyone identify this individual?' The radio answered with a crackling silence as Ellen's gaze raced from one booth to the next in the row. There! She saw a man's back behind the brown glass of the box -- only forty or fifty metres away. The silhouette of the figure was clear in the light from behind, as was the short barrel with the sights protruding over his shoulder. 'Weapon!' she shouted. 'He's got a machine gun.' 'Fuck!' Harry kicked open the car door, took hold of the frame and swung out. Ellen stared at the motorcade. It couldn't be more than a few hundred metres off. Harry stuck his head inside the car. 'He's not one of ours, but he could be Secret Service,' he said. 'Call HQ.' He already had the revolver in his hand. 'Harry . . .' 'Now! And give a blast on the horn if HQ say it's one of theirs.' Harry started to run towards the toll booth and the back of the man dressed in a suit. From the barrel, Harry guessed the gun was an Uzi. The raw early morning air smarted in his lungs. 'Police!' he shouted in Norwegian, then in English. No reaction. The thick glass of the box was manufactured to deaden the traffic noise outside. The man had turned his head towards the motorcade now and Harry could see his dark Ray-Bans. Secret Service. Or someone who wanted to give that impression. Twenty metres now. How did he get inside a locked booth if he wasn't one of theirs? Damn! Harry could already hear the motorcycles. He wouldn't make it to the box. He released the safety catch and took aim, praying that the car horn would shatter the stillness of this strange morning on a closed motorway he had never wanted at any time to be anywhere near. The instructions were clear, but he was unable to shut out his thoughts: Thin vest. No communication. Shoot, it is not your fault. Has he got a family? The motorcade was coming from directly behind the toll booth, and it was coming fast. In a couple of seconds the Cadillacs would be level with the booths. From the corner of his left eye he noticed a movement, a little bird taking off from the roof. Whether to take the risk or not . . . the eternal dilemma. He thought about the low neck on the vest, lowered the revolver half an inch. The roar of the motorcycles was deafening. Excerpted from The Redbreast: A Harry Hole Novel by Jo Nesbo All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.