Black Poker
Wandrup, Fredrik: Svart Poker .. a whirlwind of action ...Kings, queens and jokers …
After a drunken night out, the broke and disillusioned publicist Benjamin Brenner ends up playing poker in Oslo’s East End – something he should have never done – because he ends up owning the wrong man, Helge Steen, a lot of money. A LOT of money ….
But there is a solution. If he agrees to work for Mr. Steen, his debts will be erased. The hatch? Steen wants a plan for a robbery of a money transport. And not just any money transport. It is Christmas time, and people are in a shopping frenzy. Oslo’a s biggest shopping mall is cashing in tons of money right now, and the profit will be transported from the mall on the following Monday. Steen’s contacts know all about the transports timing and route through Oslo, but Benjamin Brenner, with his non-criminal mind, must figure out when, where and how the robbery should be carried out – successfully. And Brenner can’? t afford to decline this offer; doing so would be the tantamount to suicide.
The money transport is cleverly and successfully robbed, but something goes utterly wrong, and Brenner is left with all the money. What to do? He decides to hide the money and flee the country.
He is drawn into a whirlwind of action – a flight for his life that takes him to Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, and finally back to Norway.
Brenner is not only on the run from aggressive gangsters, he is fleeing from himself and from his own dubious morality. Accompanied by Buster Keaton, Robert De Niro, Joseph Conrad, Warren Zevon and Marguerite Duras, he is pushed to his absolute limit. Everything he has until now only seen in films and read about in books is happening to him. And it is even more complicated than he could have ever imagined.
Fredrik Wandrup has written biographies about Jens Bjørneboe, Olaf Bull and James Bond, among others. This is his first novel – a tearaway, humorous action thriller packed with references to film and literature. A Norwegian “Noir” mixture of Tintin and Tarantino.
A praise for Black Poker:
Wandrup has built the book in a classically thrilling way. With an exciting passage from Thailand, He manages to catch your attention from page one. He keeps it throughout the book. It is a good sign in a crime novel when you actually want to keep reading. Fredrik Wandrup has a sharp and good pen. You can tell from the book that he has really enjoyed himself when he can let reality be reality and concentrate on free fantasy. The book flows well on this drive.
Bent Mosfjell, Bokavisen
Fredrik Wandrup: Bibliograpy and biography
