Nemesis (Nesbø novel)

Nemesis

Hardcover edition
Author	Jo Nesbø
Original title	Sorgenfri
Translator	Don Bartlett
Country	Norway (episodes in Brazil and Egypt, ongoing events in Russia significantly affecting the plot)
Language	Norwegian
Series	Harry Hole, #4
Genre	Crime novel
Publisher	Aschehoug
Publication date	2002
Media type	Print (Hardback)
ISBN	82-525-4910-1
OCLC	52064471
Preceded by	The Redbreast
Followed by	The Devil's Star

Nemesis (Norwegian: Sorgenfri, a placename in Norway) is a 2002 crime novel by Norwegian writer Jo Nesbø, the fourth in the Harry Hole series.^[1]

Plot introduction

A fatal bank robbery in Oslo must be solved, but Harry also has to deal with two women who are important to him, while trying to stay away from the alcohol which continues to have him in its grip.

This book introduces for the first time the character of Beate Lønn, who will become an important part of the series, a valued partner of Harry's who significantly interacts with other characters. Highly courageous and dedicated, she is the daughter of a police officer killed by a bank robber and has joined the police in order to emulate him; she has the unique ability to remember every face she had ever seen; to begin with, she is very shy and easily embarrassed, though she will gain confidence in the course of this and later books.^[2]

Synopsis

During a bank robbery in Oslo, a lone robber holds a teller hostage and threatens to kill her unless the ATM is emptied within 25 seconds before the police can arrive. When the transfer takes 31 seconds, the robber executes the hostage and flees. The case goes unsolved until a police video evidence expert, Beate Lønn, surmises from the footage that the robber and the hostage knew each other. Lønn and Inspector Harry Hole, are assigned to the murder investigation. Further robberies occur in the same way, but the hostages meet the robber's specified time limit and are spared.

While Hole's girlfriend Rakel and her son Oleg are in Moscow, Hole is invited to dinner with an old girlfriend named Anna Bethsen, a flamboyant painter. The following morning, Hole awakens in his own apartment with a hangover and no memory of the night before. Later that day, Anna is found dead of an apparent suicide. Seeing that the gun is not in the right hand, Hole believes this Anna was murdered and that the scene was staged. A photograph found near her body suggests the involvement of a rich businessman who may have been Anna's lover. Hole conceals evidence of his presence in Anna's flat, uncertain that he himself is not the killer.

Learning that Anna was a gypsy, Hole enlists the help of her uncle, an imprisoned bank robber named Raskol, to get his insight into the robberies in exchange for solving Anna's killing. Hole receives illegal payments from Raskol to fund the investigation. Further evidence, on top of Raskol's suggestions, send Hole and Lønn to find a robbery suspect hiding in Porto Seguro, Brazil, only to find him hanging from a beam in his home. Back home, Hole receives e-mails from the murderer, signed S2MN. When the adversarial Detective Inspector Tom Waaler learns of Hole's visit to Anna, Hole finds himself on the run.

Hole forwards the incriminating e-mails to Lønn as evidence of his innocence. However, forensics determines that the e-mails were sent on time-delay by a modem connected to Hole's missing mobile phone. Waaler finds another former lover of Anna's, who may have robbed the banks, but shoots him dead when he seems to resist arrest. Hole deciphers the e-mail signature S2MN and finds that it stands for "Nemesis," the name of Anna's planned art show. Hole's "hangover" is proven by forensics to be the effects of being drugged. Anna's death was an intricate suicide, which she had plotted to confuse and convict Hole and two other former lovers, all of whom had abandoned her.

Thanks to Raskol's gypsy contacts, Rakel wins custody of Oleg and returns to Norway with him. But even now Harry cannot relax. He has gotten wind of a witness in the murder of his former colleague, killed during the Redbreast investigation into a mysterious gun smuggler. The witness may have seen Ellen's murderer with the smuggler, known only as the Prince. Harry shows him a picture of his new prime suspect.

Translation

As with other Harry Hole novels, the novel was translated from Norwegian into English by Don Bartlett.

References

External links

• Official website
• Review in The Guardian.