The Fifth Element

Book 0: Odd Singsaker

by Jorgen Brekke

Genres: Police Procedurals; International Crime & Mystery

Synopsis

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.

Release date: February 28, 2017

Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

Print pages: 336

Sample

1
 
Two weeks after it happened …
Odd Singsaker opened his eyes. He’d shut them to try to visualize the scene. Time seemed to have stopped ever since he’d stood in that house with the shotgun at his feet. Now he was sitting in an interrogation room along with Kurt Melhus, an investigator from Internal Affairs.
“Can you describe how you felt when you stood there?” said Melhus.
“I don’t know what I felt,” replied Singsaker.
“Was it hate?”
“I don’t know what hate is, to tell you the truth. That’s too abstract for me.”
“Haven’t you ever hated anyone?”
“I’m not sure.”
“What about love, then? In this very room, you told me about your love for Felicia Stone.”
“Yes,” said Singsaker, suddenly claustrophobic in the cramped interrogation room.
“Hate is the opposite of love, isn’t it?” Melhus seemed genuinely interested in this topic.
“Nothing is the opposite of love. When you love someone, there’s no opposite to it. Well, sorrow, maybe,” said Singsaker, looking down at the table between them.
“Is that what you really think? Well, they do say that love does not know its adversary,” said Melhus.
“I don’t know if hate exists. But never mind. I was angry, furious, I think.”
“So you picked up the shotgun?”
“Yes, I picked it up and took aim,” said Singsaker.
“And then what happened?”
“Then I said: You know I’m never going to kill you. Not as long as you haven’t told me where Felicia is and what you’ve done with her.”
 
Copyright © 2013 by Jørgen Brekke
Translation copyright © 2017 by Steven T. Murray