Red Zone (detective novel)
Rote Zone (Norwegian original title: Rød sone ) is the second detective novel by the Norwegian journalist and writer Asbjørn Jaklin . The book was published in 2016 by Suhrkamp Verlag in a translation from Norwegian by Ulrich Sonnenberg . Rote Zone is the author's second novel starring Alexander Winther.
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After the novel Tödlicher Frost , Rote Zone is the second detective novel by the Norwegian journalist and writer Asbjørn Jaklin with the protagonist Alexander Winter. The former member of a special command of the Norwegian Navy is an Afghanistan veteran who has retired into civilian life and has now been doing an internship as a journalist at the regional daily Nordlys for several months. As a result of his combat missions in Afghanistan, he suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder , which repeatedly affects him in the course of the plot. For this reason he is in therapeutic treatment. Alexander Winther is the son of a retired officer from the Norwegian Security Service and has a relationship with Vivi Frederiksen, an anesthetist.
Like the Deadly Frost, the plot is set in the northern Norwegian coastal city of Tromsø . At a conference about aircraft purchases by the Norwegian government, the speaker and former member of the Royal Navy Peter Barrow was killed in his hotel room. He was a member of an air squadron that fought together in the Falklands War and was stationed on the Norwegian-Russian border during the Cold War under the leadership of NATO . Alexander Winther is tasked with researching the causes of Barrow's death and soon comes across some inconsistencies in the context of PSYOP ( psychological warfare ) missions by NATO in 1982 and 1983. At that time, fictitious attacks were made against Soviet military bases on the Kola Peninsula in order to increase the psychological pressure on the Soviet military leadership. The unexplained incidents involved the crash of a civilian plane over Mehamn (the so-called Mehamn accident in 1982) and a shot down Soviet military machine in the Finnish-Norwegian border area (1983). In the course of Alexander Winther's investigations, two other people are murdered and attacks on Alexander Winther are repeated.
As in his previous crime novel Tödlicher Frost , Asbjørn Jaklin refers to real political and military events in Norway and is linked to fictional events in the crime novel. The so-called Mehamn accident is based on facts that were determined by an inquiry committee of the Norwegian Storting in June 2004 . The extensive, war-like maneuvers of NATO in Norway in the 1980s were based on the Lehmann doctrine of a psychological intimidation policy of Russia. In the process, NATO deliberately violated the no-fly zone east of the 24th longitude in northern Norway several times.
people
Alexander Winther - Former naval fighter and investigative journalist for the Norwegian daily Nordlys
Thomas Winther - father of Alexander Winther, former official of the Norwegian Intelligence Service
Vivi Frederiksen - nurse anesthetist, Winter's partner
Torkil Erstad - head of the Nordlys newspaper
Tora Elvevoll - photographer for the daily newspaper Nordlys
Richard Morton, Peter Barrow, David Hutton, Douglas Scofield, Thomas Baird, Steven Campbell - members of the 801st Squadron of the Royal Navy
Rebecca Mack - Police Attorney
Bjørne Berg - journalist at NRK
Reviews
Throughout the book, a very well researched background is attested, but at the same time the lack of tension and surprising twists as well as the poorly worked out characteristics of its characters are criticized.
Attacks on the protagonist and some action spice up the final third of the novel, but overall I lack turbulence and surprising twists and turns. The investigations of the certainly resourceful and courageous journalist are interesting to read, but such real tension rarely arises .
bibliography
- Asbjørn Jaklin: Rød sone, detective novel - Vigmostad & Bjørke Verlag. Oslo, 2014 ISBN 978-82-41-90921-4
- Asbjørn Jaklin: Red Zone. Detective novel. Translated from the Norwegian by Ulrich Sonnenberg. Suhrkamp Verlag, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-518-46649-0
- The Norwegian and German versions of the crime novel are also available as ebooks on the various audio platforms.
Web links
- Rød sone on the website of Vigmostad & Bjørke Verlag
- Red Zone on the Stilton Literary Agency website
- Red zone on the website of Suhrkamp Verlag