AshehougAgency

Dead Things

The second book about Elmer Henriksen.

Former journalist and radio personality Elmer Henriksen is working as a pirate taxi driver and doing odd jobs at a seedy hotel for derelicts. He actually feels he could be doing worse. Then the night watch at the hotel is killed when her apartment building burns down. Convinced that her landlord ordered the fire, the hotel owner asks Henriksen to help him prove it.

Somewhat half-heartedly, Henriksen starts digging, and to his own surprise uncovers a link between the fire, the Oslo City Council and a shady real estate deal involving municipal property.

Meanwhile, the secrets of Henriksen's own recent past are resurfacing - in the form of an old acquaintance with a newly developed taste for heroin and a burning desire to know why Henriksen has taken such a giant leap down the career ladder.

Before long, Henriksen finds himself caught in a crossfire between a couple of corrupt politicians, a consortium of extremely cynical businessmen and a not very bright, but unscrupulous debt-collector. It seems there is only one way out of this mess, and to find it, he has to go all the way down to the bottom of the pit.

With a dark sense of humor and satire - and the occasional outburst of violent action - Pedersen & Birkeland draws an image of the Norwegian capital as a city where dead things are valued higher than the living.

Dead Things is the second book about Elmer Henriksen. Hillman Hunter is the first.

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Praise for Dead Things:

"I was impressed with the [authors'] ability to create credible characters, not to mention the relations between them. It is always good to see literature that chooses to describe people with very ugly qualities, while at the same time having moments of sympathy with them."
(Dagsavisen)

"Suspenseful, well composed, interesting."
(NRK P2)

First published: 2008, Aschehoug
Egil Birkeland and Bjørnar Pedersen: Biography and bibliography