Desecration (novel)

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Desecration (in the Danish original: Fasandræberne , literally: pheasant murderer) is a thriller by the Danish writer Jussi Adler-Olsen . The original edition of the second work in a crime novel series for the Carl Mørck Dezernat Q series was published in Denmark in 2008 . The novel was made into a film in 2014 .

action

As in the first volume, the main character is the deputy detective Carl Mørck, who has worked for the Copenhagen Homicide Commission for 25 years. He has been separated from his wife Vigga since 2005 and lives with their son Jesper and a student as a subtenant in a house in Allerød . The plot begins in 2007, when Mørck is transferred to the "Special Department Q" in the basement of the police headquarters by his boss, Marcus Jacobsen, and his deputy, Lars Bjørn. The task of him and his assistants Hafez el-Assad and Rose Knudsen is to reopen old, unsolved crimes.

The special department Q deals, among other things, with a double murder on August 2, 1987, when two children of a detective inspector were brutally murdered. Søren Jørgensen was beaten to death with a hammer and his sister Lisbet was tortured to death. An initial suspicion against the school clique at an elite boarding school in Rødovre was quickly confirmed. However, since nothing could be proven of the suspects, the investigation was discontinued. In 1996 one of the former Rødovre students Bjarne Thøgersen assumed sole guilt and was sentenced to several years in prison in Vridsløselille State Prison. Detective Inspector Henning P. Jørgensen immediately took his own life out of mourning for his murdered children.

The mother of the murdered siblings, Martha Jørgensen, suffers from an inoperable brain tumor and is looked after by the widow Yvette Larsen in Roskilde . Mørck is not convinced that Thøgersen should be solely responsible for the murder. What sets him apart from the other wealthy children of the clique at the time is that he was the only one who was dependent on a scholarship . Everyone else has now made a career, Ditlev Pram as a plastic surgeon , Ulrik Dybbøl Jensen as a securities dealer and Torsten Florin as a fashion designer . Her friend, the ship owner Kristian Wolf, died on September 15, 1996 after a hunting accident. He had accidentally shot himself in the abdomen and was bleeding to death. Kirsten-Marie (“Kimmie”) Lassen, the only girl in the school clique, had to cope with a few blows of fate in her life and ended up being homeless on the streets of Copenhagen in 1996 .

Carl Mørck has access to a list of unresolved offenses related to the Rødovre boarding school. These include bodily harm , fatal accidents and missing persons reports. On June 14, 1987, Kåre Bruno died in an accident in a swimming pool under mysterious circumstances. For example, it was not possible to finally clarify whether the incident was an accident or whether he was pushed off the ten-meter board by an unknown person and died when he hit the tile floor. On September 13, 1987, 32-year-old Grete Sonne was attacked and severely abused by a group of young people while walking . Her dog was killed and the woman whipped naked. In another incident on November 8, 1987, twins' fingers were cut off in a playground in Tappernøjge. A German couple who were on vacation on the island of Langeland disappeared on April 24, 1988. The Rudkøbing police did not investigate a reference made by their daughter Gisela Niemüller, who lives in Kiel , to her mother's earrings .

Mørck's colleague Johan Jacobsen made sure that the file and the list of Rødovre cases land on Mørck's desk. He aims to reopen the investigation against the suspicious school clique. Jacobsen was engaged to Lisbet Jørgensen, so he had a relationship with Søren Jørgensen's sister. Superiors Marcus Jacobsen and Lars Bjørn refuse to reopen the Rødovre case because Bjarne Thøgersen has been finally convicted. Carl Mørck has the impression that former members of the Rødovre clique are exerting pressure on the Ministry of Justice and the police headquarters . In the vicinity of Kirsten-Marie Lassen, Mørck finds evidence in the form of a metal box, which presumably contains personal items from the time of the murders.

Mørck flies to Madrid and interrogates the building contractor Kyle Basset, "who was hospitalized during his school days in Rørvig". The suspicion that Kristian Wolf, Ulrik Dybbøl Jensen, Ditlev Pram, Torsten Florin, Bjarne Thøgersen and Kirsten-Marie Lassen are the perpetrators is growing. Mørck's assistant Hafez el-Assad is given the task of looking for Kirsten-Marie Lassen. It turns out that the private detective Finn Aalbæk is also looking for the woman and so there is a physical argument between Mørck and Aalbæk. Herbert Pram, Justice Ministerial Director and brother of Ditlev Pram, and Lars Bjørn, also a Rødovre pupil, cause Mørck to be suspended.

In Kimmie Larssen's memories, leitmotifs from the feature film A Clockwork Orange appear again and again , which served as inspiration for her former comrades in the Rødovre clique . Alex, the leader of A Clockwork Orange , and his deeds served as a model for them. Kristian Wolf took on the role of leader. Together with the group, they committed a series of robberies for futile motives that resulted in serious bodily harm to their victims. Her classmate Kyle Basset became the first victim. Kimmie Larssen made the mistake that she moved into Bjarne Thøgersen's apartment and was no longer available to the other members of the clique. In doing so, she had violated the group's laws. In retaliation, she was raped by Kristian Wolf, Ditlev Pram and Torsten Florin in March 1996, Bjarne Thøgersen was not in the house at the time . Bjarne Thøgersen came home unexpectedly and participated in the gang rape instead of defending his girlfriend against his own group members. On the day after the crime, Torsten Florin bought the pet shop that Kimmie Larssen was employed in, thus ensuring that the young woman suddenly became unemployed. Kimmie became pregnant from the gang rape and broke up with her clique. She threatened Ditlev and Torsten that she had kept evidence of her crime and that she would be handed over to the police.

On July 24, 1996, Kristian Wolf beat her so badly that she was admitted to Bispebjerg Hospital. There the gynecologists found that her four-month embryo had not been harmed. The gang repeated their violent punishment against Kimmie. On the night of August 2, 1996, she was again mistreated by Kristian Wolf. This time she was aborted as a result of his beating on her abdomen . She used a hectic scene at an emergency room to flee the hospital with her dead, mummified daughter Mille. Kimmie was delusional all the time, talking to her dead child.

During her escape, she was turned away by both her stepmother Kassandra and her father. She found shelter with the heroin addict prostitute Tine "Ratten-Tine" Karlsen in the Copenhagen district of Vesterbro . On September 15, 1996, during an announced hunt on the island of Lolland, an opportunity arose to take revenge on Kristian Wolf. She stabbed his genitals with a knife and shot the serious injury with a shotgun . Then she moved away from the crime scene and let Wolf bleed to death. For the police, the incident turned out to be a hunting accident. Ulrik Dybbøl Jensen, Ditlev Pram, Torsten Florin and Bjarne Thøgersen, however, suspected that it could be an act of revenge by Kimmie. Thøgersen then turned himself in to the police and charged himself with the murder of Lisbet and Søren Jørgensen in Rørvig.

The plot now jumps back to the present, into the year 2007. Kimmie decides to complete her plans for revenge and thus also kill Ulrik Dybbøl Jensen, Ditlev Pram and Torsten Florin. She begins her endeavor by knocking up a model from Torsten Florin's company and breaking into Ditlev Pram's villa in Rungsted. Previously, Pram had beaten up his wife Thelma's lover. Kimmie involves Thelma in her plans for revenge and hands her a pistol. Kimmie's friend "Ratten-Tine" warns her that Ulrik, Ditlev and Torsten have set up a private investigator to catch her. Kimmie devastates the Dybbølsbro station building with a hand grenade and gets Tine a large amount of heroin , from whose overdose she dies.

Kimmie seduces private detective Finn Aalbæk and forces him to throw himself off the balcony. Her stepmother Kassandra tells her that her father is dying in Monte Carlo . In affect she kills Kassandra by suffocating her with port wine . Ulrik Dybbøl Jensen calls Kassandra to warn her about the vengeful stepdaughter. Kimmie picks up the phone and pretends to be her stepmother Kassandra. Through this deception she succeeds in finding out that Torsten is inviting Ulrik and Ditlev to another hunting event at Ejlstrup's. While leaving her stepmother's house, Kimmie is surprised by the housekeeper Charlotte Nielsen. She dies in a scuffle.

Special department Q establishes a connection between Finn Aalbæk and Ditlev Pram using telephone calls. In addition, the earring found in the tin box matches that of the German woman who disappeared on Langeland. Meanwhile, the hunt organized by Torsten Florin has started with a few peculiarities. The game animals are a mad fox and a hyena ; crossbows act as hunting weapons instead of shotguns. At the same time, Carl Mørck and Hafez el-Assad illegally investigate Torsten Florin's property without an official search warrant. They discover several cages with wild animals. Florin, Pram and Dybbøl Jensen surprise the police, and Ditliv Pram injures Mørck with a crossbow arrow on the shoulder. The overwhelmed are tied up. Mørck flees and can hide in a pile of leaves despite the small gap in his blindfold. He witnesses how the mad fox ambushes one of the hunters and bites his groin. The fox is killed and the injured person is taken to the nearest hospital for medical treatment. Kimmie appears and is able to prevent Hafez el-Assad from being attacked by the hyena. She takes Ditlev, Ulrik and Torsten under their control, locks the three of them in a cage with a hyena and throws a hand grenade . Ulrik Dybbøl Jensen, Ditlev Pram, Torsten Florin and the hyena are killed and the building is affected.

Kimmie leaves a notebook for Mørck and Assad with all the details of the crimes the clique had committed at the time. She dies by suicide by throwing herself in front of a train together with the mummified baby body. Carl Mørck brings his paraplegic friend Hardy Henningsen to his home for care and wants to assist in dying.

Character analysis

Jussi Adler-Olsen spends a lot of time characterizing his main characters and their social circumstances.

“There are two ambivalences that make this book stand out from the crowd of thrillers: On the one hand, there is the contrast between the seriousness of the topic - Adler-Olsen negotiates here, even if he does not sound it out in depth, no less than that abysmal evil slumbering in people - and the ease and ironic humor with which Commissioner Mørck approaches the case and repeatedly squabbles with Assad and Rose. On the other hand, there is the difficult-to-bear ambivalence to which one is exposed as a reader to one of the characters, who must be seen as the personification of callousness and the pleasure in tormenting, and which one is, because she herself is a tortured soul and is tough Atonement imposed, pity and sympathy for them. That makes the novel really strong. "

“With the team of investigators around the quirky Carl Mørck, Adler-Olsen obviously hits a nerve for many readers. The commissioner has actually been deported by his superiors to a basement room, where he is supposed to manage a specially established 'Special Department Q'. But it soon turns out that this department is highly effective when it comes to solving long-forgotten criminal cases. Mørck is supported by his mysterious Syrian assistant Assad and the crazy Rose, a lady with a split personality. "

characters

Protagonists

  • Carl Mørck: main character in the series. Mørck is a police officer and has been employed by the homicide squad in Copenhagen for 25 years. His friend and colleague, Anker Høyer, was killed during a police operation. His other colleague Hardy Henningsen was injured by a gunshot and has since been paralyzed from the neck down, Mørck himself was injured by a grazing shot in the temple. This event left Mørck severely traumatized. His superior, Marcus Jacobsen, therefore transfers him to the newly created Q department to deal with unsolved criminal cases, so-called “cold cases”. The author characterizes Mørck as an egomaniac, poor contact and sometimes harsh Danish investigator who, however, also has a soft and vulnerable side.

“He tapped the paper several times with the pencil, then he wrote, without, of course, pushing the lead open too hard: - Hardy. - Chase rose to hell. - Fuck Mona Ibsen. "

- desecration . dtv, ISBN 978-3-423-24787-0 , p. 126

Adler-Olsen about his protagonist:

“In any case, my goal is to develop Carl Morck's character further until you get to the point where you know everything and then everything starts all over again. It is exactly the same with Assad. The two are very different, but at some point - and I already know where and why - their lines will cross. "

- Jussi Adler-Olsen about Carl Mørck in http://www.booksection.de/autor/165-Jussi_Adler_Olsen
  • Hafez el-Assad: Mørck's assistant. Assad, a Syrian immigrant, is an idiosyncratic as well as very lively and dynamic figure. Thanks to his energy, the plot is driven, so Assad often serves as a catalyst for history. Assad came to Denmark with his family in 1998 and lived in the Sandholm refugee camp until 2000. He was then granted asylum .
  • Kirsten-Marie "Kimmie" Lassen: She is a former member of the Rødovre clique. However, she falls from grace and is pursued by the group. She is homeless and has to change her identity several times while fleeing from her persecutors. Kimmie is the tragic heroine of the story. The former perpetrator becomes the victim, who kills herself at the end of her fulfilled plan of revenge.

“Then she was asked to leave the house and was now literally on the street in this residential area. With the bundle under her arm and the blood-soaked bandage between her legs, Kimmie knew only one thing: that one day everyone who had abused and humiliated her would atone for it. "

- desecration . dtv, ISBN 978-3-423-24787-0 , p. 370

Antagonists

  • Bjarne Thøgersen: Member of the Rødovre clique. Child of poorer parents, is dependent on the school scholarship. Thøgersen is said to be the alleged perpetrator of a series of murders that the Rødovre clique are accused of. After nine years, he volunteered for the police. He has been in custody ever since.
  • Kristian Wolf (†): Former leader of the Rødovre clique, shipowner. The unscrupulous wolf is killed by Kimmie in revenge for what the gang did to her. Outwardly, the act looks like a hunting accident. He died on September 15, 1996, four months after his marriage to Countess Maria Saxenholdt.

“Kristian took the initiative. He was almost two years older than the rest and had no respect for anything or anyone. The whole class looked up at him. He always had plenty of money in his pocket, even if it was against the school rules. A guy with a wide-awake look who carefully selected Ditlev, Torsten, Ulrik and Bjarne for the clique. In many ways they went together. They were maladjusted. Filled with hatred of the school and all other authorities. Plus 'Clockwork Orange' - that welded together. "

- desecration . dtv, ISBN 978-3-423-24787-0 , p. 102
  • Ditlev Pram: leader and a kind of “alpha male” in the Rødovre clique. Pram is a successful businessman and has built a chain of plastic surgery clinics and has made a lot of money. He is a power man with strong sadistic envy, which he takes out on his surroundings and on his Filipino unskilled workers.

“He pulled away from her and picked her up by the hair. Then he forced his tongue deep into her mouth, pulled off her panties and dug his fingers into her groin. When he finally pushed her back and she fell to the ground, both of them had more than enough. Then he straightened his clothes, put a thousand-crown bill in her mouth and left the laundry with a friendly smile. He'd be busy at the Caracas Clinic for the next week. The girls would already notice where the hammer was hanging here. "

- desecration . dtv, ISBN 978-3-423-24787-0 , p. 27

“Ditlev Pram was a handsome man and he knew it. There were always enough women in Business Class on the plane who didn't protest when he talked about his Lamborghini and how fast he drove to the villa in Rungsted. "

- desecration . dtv, ISBN 978-3-423-24787-0 , p. 11

“That was what Ditlev Pram loved: gunshots, non-stop. Killing, non-stop. "

- desecration . dtv, ISBN 978-3-423-24787-0 , p. 67

"He went into the kitchen to open a can of caviar, which he wanted to enjoy while he could still call up Frank Helmond's horrified face on his retina."

- desecration . dtv, ISBN 978-3-423-24787-0 , p. 107
  • Herbert Pram: Herbert is Ditlev's older brother. As Justice Ministerial Director he can use his power to the advantage of the Rødovre clique.
  • Ulrik Dybbøl Jensen: Member of the Rødovre clique. Tall Ulrik is a securities dealer and was the only member of the clique who did not take part in the rape of Kimmie, which bothers him.
  • Torsten Florin: Member of the Rødovre clique, fashion designer

“It often happens the day you turn forty. Or the day you have your first million in your account. Or at least when your own father retires and only has crossword puzzles to do. On that day, most people suddenly feel free from patriarchal condescension, from all the know-it-all remarks and critical looks. It was not the case with Torsten Florin. He had surpassed his father's wealth. Had set himself apart from his younger siblings, none of whom had even remotely done anything remarkable. Even in the media, he'd done it far more often than his father. Everyone in Denmark knew him. He was admired, especially by the women his father had always been so keen on. "

- desecration . dtv, ISBN 978-3-423-24787-0 , p. 92
  • Finn Aalbæk: private detective hired on Kimmie Lassen by former members of the Rødovre clique using illegal methods.

Dieter Wunderlich writes about the motives of the antagonists:

“Both rich and emotionally cold parents raise their offspring to be unemotional careerists who, even as boarding school students, discover the thrill they get from humiliating and torturing other people. Four of these sadists grow their wealth as successful business people. Kimmie, the only woman in the clique, is traumatized by a desecration and struggles on the street, even though she owns a house. These perverts, who embody evil, are faced by Carl Mørck, a deputy detective superintendent who has been pushed onto the dead track and who does not allow anything to be dictated by anyone and who follows his own compass. "

Minor characters

  • Vigga Mørck: Carl's wife
  • Jesper Mørck: Vigga's son and Carl's stepson
  • Marcus Jacobsen: Mørck's police superior
  • Lars Bjørn: Jacobsen's deputy
  • Rose Knudsen: Mørck's assistant in the Q department
  • Henning P. Jørgensen: detective inspector, father of Søren and Lisbet
  • Martha Jørgensen: Hennings wife
  • Søren Jørgensen (†): son of Henning, murder victim
  • Lisbet Jørgensen (†): daughter of Henning, murder victim
  • Thelma Pram: Ditlev's wife
  • Yvette Larsen: widow, takes care of Martha Jørgensen
  • Mille Lassen (†): stillborn daughter of Kimmie
  • Kåre Bruno (†): A student at the Rødovre boarding school, dies in an accident
  • Grete Sonne: Victim of violence by the Rødovre clique
  • Gisela Niemüller: daughter of a missing couple
  • Johan Jacobsen: colleague of Carl Mørck, fiance of Lisbet Jørgensen
  • Kyle Basset: Rørvig student, later a building contractor, first victim of the Rødovre clique
  • Kassandra: Kimmie's stepmother
  • Charlotte Nielsen: Kassandra's housekeeper
  • Tine "Ratten-Tine" Karlsen: heroin addicted prostitute, Kimmie's girlfriend
  • Hardy Henningsen: Hardy is Mørck's paraplegic friend, who is physically handicapped after an accident during a police operation.

Reviews

Jussi Adler-Olsen is referred to as an “independent author” who differs from his Swedish colleague Stieg Larsson “through his own voice, subject matter and personal approach”. Desecration, a case for Carl Mørck, Special Department Q, with the original title Fasandræbern (Pheasant Murderer) is considered memorable "and original, so that the German translation desecration seems inappropriate". “The book offers successful and exciting barbed entertainment”.

Reviews

“The hunters' thirst for blood. How would you do it? A single shot? No. They weren't that gracious, these devils, they weren't like that ... A body found in a summer house in Rørvig. Two siblings were brutally murdered. [...] Do what you want, the whole law should be. "

“Especially the characters Mørck and Kimmie arouse the reader's interest because of their unusual behavior. The detective novel 'Desecration' by Jussi Adler-Olsen is exciting anyway. "

“Both rich and emotionally cold parents raise their offspring to be unemotional careerists who, even as boarding school students, discover the thrill they get from humiliating and torturing other people. Four of these sadists grow their wealth as successful business people. Kimmie, the only woman in the clique, is traumatized by a desecration and struggles on the street, even though she owns a house. These perverts who embody evil are confronted by Carl Mørck, a deputy detective superintendent who has been pushed onto the dead track, who does not allow anything to be dictated by anyone and who follows his own compass. Jussi Adler-Olsen tells the gloomy story after an epilogue leading in time, alternating chronologically between the perspectives of Mørck, Kimmie and their former cronies. Past events are made up for in the form of Kimmie's memories as flashbacks. Especially the characters Mørck and Kimmie arouse the reader's interest due to their unusual behavior. The detective novel 'Desecration' is exciting anyway. Reading is impaired because Jussi Adler-Olsen puts a little too much of everything and exaggerates excessively at the showdown. "

“This year's summer hit is the Dane Jussi Adler-Olsen, although his novel 'Mercy' was published in September 2009. The thriller has been on the SPIEGEL bestseller list for forty-six weeks. Volume two 'Desecrations' will be published these days ... "

- Hannes Hintermeier : Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, August 19, 2010

"The crime thriller is one of the strongest, most exciting and lunatic in recent times."

- Michael Kluger : Frankfurter Neue Presse, August 18, 2010

“In his second novel, 'Desecration', Adler-Olsen sends his commissioner back into the abyss of fine Danish society. [...] The crime is an upper class phenomenon. Committed by people who believe they can buy their way out of responsibility. [...] Adler-Olsen's view of his homeland is just as pessimistic as Henning Mankell's view of Sweden. Ystad, the small town in southern Sweden where Kurt Wallander solved his cases, seems to be in the same country as Adler-Olsen's Copenhagen. "

- Joachim Kronsbein : Der Spiegel , July 19, 2010

"The novel is a real thriller - readers will have a hard time putting it down before the last page is read."

- Roland Krüger : Deutschlandradio Kultur, September 13, 2010

"Breathtaking suspense, right up to the brilliant showdown at the end."

- WDR 5 literary magazine, August 28, 2010

"'Desecration' is a real page turner."

- Maren Ahring : NDR Kultur, September 1, 2010

“Perfect for: Intrepid. And people who like to be scared. "

- Brigitte, October 20, 2010

"Intoxicating and intelligent: Adler-Olsen is the star in crime thriller."

- Christoph Schröder : Journal Frankfurt, October 22, 2010

expenditure

Sequels

The novel Desecration is the second volume in the Carl Mørck Dezernat Q series and follows the first book Mercy. Redemption, contempt, and expectation followed.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c crime couch desecration of Jussi Adler-Olsen
  2. ↑ a b c d Dieter Wunderlich: Jussi Adler-Olsen: Desecration (novel)
  3. ^ Christoph Nettersheim: Critique. Amazon
  4. ↑ A new case for Carl Mørck - Adler-Olsen places according to Focus Literatur, August 29, 2012
  5. ↑ Krimi-Netz, Seven Questions to Jussi Adler-Olsen
  6. ↑ Dieter Wunderlich: Adler-Olsen: desecration
  7. ↑ Dieter Wunderlich: Adler-Olsen: desecration