Deadly frost

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Deadly Frost (Norwegian original title: Svart Frost ) is the first crime novel by the Norwegian journalist and writer Asbjørn Jaklin . The book was published in 2014 by Suhrkamp Verlag in a translation from Norwegian by Ulrich Sonnenberg . Deadly Frost is also the author's first novel starring Alexander Winther.

content

Deadly Frost introduces the protagonist Alexander Winter for the first time. The former member of a special command of the Norwegian Navy is an Afghanistan veteran who has retired into civilian life and is now doing an internship as a journalist at the regional daily newspaper Nordlys. As a result of his combat missions in Afghanistan, he suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder , which affects him again and again in the course of the plot, for example at the funeral of his friend and comrade Hallvard Larsen, who died in a mountain accident. Alexander Winther is the son of a retired officer from the Norwegian Security Service and lives with Vivi Frederiksen, an anesthetist in Tromsø .

Alex (other) Winther is investigating a gruesome murder in Botn, a town near Tromsø in northern Norway, in his newspaper . There a man was found murdered in a barn on a farm. It soon turns out that the murdered man is of Bosnian origin and was tortured with a tombstone from the nearby cemetery with fallen soldiers from the Second World War. The investigation takes the journalist Winter into the time of the occupation of Norway by the German Wehrmacht, during which the SS extermination camp Botn was building the so-called Blood Street played a terrible role. Winther soon discovers several well-kept family secrets and tracks down a hushed up political scandal from Norway's post-war period.

The detective novel spans a total of four narrative levels: (1) the time of the German occupation of Norway, especially the years 1942–1945, in which the events in the SS extermination camp Botn are the focus; (2) the events surrounding a NATO conference in Oslo Norway in 1949; (3) rape during the war in Bosnia, especially the war crimes of Foča in 1992; (4) Alex Winther's ongoing investigations in Northern Norway and The Hague in 2009/2010.

In addition to the precise descriptions of the historical background and the solution to the complex case, it is above all the thematization of the role of perpetrator and victim in times of war and peace that is exemplified by several characters in the novel. It eludes a clear scheme of good and bad and usually triggers conflicts of conscience in the people involved. The motivation and mechanism of torture are also described using several examples. The war experiences are powerful and effective in the next generation as well.

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
  • Johanessen - Retired officer in the Norwegian Intelligence Service
  • Henriette Lerke - Prosecutor at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, dealing with the 1992 war crimes in Foča
  • Walter Kiefer alias Reinhard Stuckmann - SS Hauptsturmführer in the SS labor camp in Botn and participant in a NATO conference in Oslo in 1949
  • Gunvor Strand - lover of Walter Kiefer, mother of Henriette Lerke
  • Mirko Novakovitsch - Serb, former medical student and forced laborer in the SS labor camp in Botn 1942
  • Franko Novakovich - murder victim, relative of Mirkos
  • Dragan Subesic - brother of Jasmina Sunesic, comes from Foča in Bosnia-Herzegovina
  • Jasmina Subesic - Dragan's sister, rape victim in the Bosnian war

Reviews

The novel was praised primarily for its well-researched historical background, behind which, however, the actual plot of the crime novel and the psychological drawing of its protagonists take a back seat. After all, the Norwegian author was nominated for the renowned Brage Prize for the best non-fiction book for his book Nordfronten: Hitlers skjebneområde (German: Die Nordfront: Hitlers Schicksalsregion ) and has published several books on historical topics from Norway by 2012. In particular, the complex plot structure of the novel, its different time and narrative levels make the detective novel difficult to read. The often completely contrary assessments of the quality of the novel can be found on the various German-language review platforms such as Lovelybooks , Vorreadingsen (2) or Was dulesen ?

In an interview, the author Asbjørn Jaklin, who is best known for his historical textbooks, pointed out that it was primarily the wish of his literary agent Hans Petter Bakketeig to make his historical knowledge usable for the criminal. In the meantime he has already worked his way into the genre of the crime novel. Jaklin also says that it is his secret plan to enrich the crime novels he has submitted with as many historical contexts as possible so that the reader learns as much as possible about the story without being constantly aware of it.

bibliography

  • Asbjørn Jaklin: Svart Frost . Vigmostad og Bjørke, Oslo 2012, ISBN 978-82-419-0740-1 , p. 347 .
  • Asbjørn Jaklin: Deadly Frost . Detective novel. Translated from the Norwegian by Ulrich Sonnenberg. Suhrkamp Verlag, Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-518-46481-6 , pp. 337 .
  • The Norwegian and German versions of the crime novel are also available as ebooks on the various audio platforms.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Asbjørn Jaklin: Northern fronts: Hitler skjebneområde . Gyldendal, Oslo 2006, ISBN 978-82-05-34537-9 .
  2. ^ Stilton Literary Agency: Asbjørn Jaklin. Retrieved October 29, 2017 .
  3. ↑ Various reviewers: Deadly Frost. In: Lovelybooks. Retrieved October 28, 2017 .
  4. ↑ Various reviewers: Deadly Frost. Retrieved October 28, 2010 .
  5. ↑ Various reviewers: Deadly Frost. In: What are you reading? Retrieved October 29, 2017 .
  6. ↑ Lars Johnsen: Asbjørn Jaklin måtte over tales til å skrive Crimea - nå gir han ut sin tredje crime novel. In: iTromsø. August 23, 2017. Retrieved October 28, 2017 (Norwegian).
  7. ↑ Ebook Deadly Frost. Retrieved October 29, 2017 .
  8. ↑ Ebook: Svart Frost. Retrieved October 29, 2017 (Norwegian).