Published in Norway in 2013; published in translation by St. Martin's Press/Minotaur Books on February 28, 2017

Rolf Fagerhus takes advantage of his position in the police to steal an Oslo drug dealer’s stash of cash. His wife has taken his daughter from him and Fagerhus intends to take her back. With the cash and forged passports, he plans to spirit his daughter away to Central America. His plan is complicated by his rushed decision to kidnap the drug dealer’s son, who witnessed his crime.

Odd Singsanker also works for the police. His wife, an American ex-cop named Felicia Stone, has disappeared, at least from Odd’s perspective. She had become irrationally jealous, they had a spat, and she went to Oslo to visit his son. But then she didn’t return to Trondheim as planned. From Felicia’s standpoint, she just dropped out for a while, making a series of impulsive decisions fueled by alcohol. When Felicia decides to go back to Trondheim, the weather impedes her return home, and since she wants to explain herself to Odd in person, she doesn’t call him before she rents a car and begins a treacherous drive. That’s always a dumb thing for a thriller character to do, and it doesn’t work out well for Felicia.

Like a good Scandinavian, Felicia takes time away from her life-threatening adventure to reflect on all the depressing events that have shaped her life, beginning at age 5. Felicia is so introspective, if not self-obsessed, that I liked her the least of all the characters.

Nearing the midway point, the novel takes a break from Odd and Felicia and tells the story of a young man named Knut who finds himself on the wrong side of a nasty drug dealer. Not long after that, it takes another break to tell the story of Sving, who solves the nasty drug dealer’s problems with a baseball bat and whose girlfriend wants him to blow up her husband. Sving’s section of the novel is quite amusing.

With its different episodes, The Fifth Element reads more like a series of related short stories than a novel, but the stories are all entertaining and they eventually link together. Maybe Odd Singsaker fans would want to see more of Odd, who plays almost a collateral role in the novel, but this is the first one in the series that I’ve read so I have no emotional investment in the character. All of the characters are portrayed with enough depth to give them substance, and the linked stories are engaging. Their eventual connection is clever, as later stories explain events that took place in earlier stories. Jorgen Brekke deserves credit for constructing the novel so carefully.

The ending is a little hokey, and the novel’s reliance on coincidence stretches the boundaries of plausibility, but those are minor flaws. On the whole, The Fifth Element tells an entertaining story that is enriched by interesting characters — although I generally found the crooks to be more interesting than the good guys.

RECOMMENDED

THE FIFTH ELEMENT
Jorgen Brekke; translated by Steven T. Murray
Minotaur Books
ISBN 978-1-250-07391-4
Hardcover
Thriller

THE FIFTH ELEMENT is a wonderful topsy-turvy carousel of a mystery which begins at the end, continues after the ending and leaves anything approaching linear storytelling a shambles. It would be a hot mess in lesser hands, but author Jorgen Brekke has his hands steadily on the wheel --- if not necessarily at the ten and two positions --- at all times, guiding the vehicle of this story so steadily through the narrative that the journey is every bit the equal of the arrival.

Trondheim, Norway police inspector Odd Singsaker --- introduced to American audiences in WHERE MONSTERS DWELL and DREAMLESS --- returns in THE FIFTH ELEMENT, and as the story begins (at its end) it appears that he is not long for this or any other world. Brekke’s ability --- ably translated by Steven T. Murray --- as a master plotter is on full display here. Each chapter tells the reader the point in time at which the story is taking place, and it bounces around more than Billy Pilgrim, yes indeed. What Brekke does is simply amazing, in that he gives away (most of) the ending and the Epilogue near the beginning of the book, but somehow manages to create an atmosphere of almost excruciating suspense which is maintained from page beginning to page end. I wish I could leave it at that, but you deserve to know at least something of what occurs in THE FIFTH ELEMENT, so here goes. A corrupt cop from Oslo is on the loose, seeking revenge on his wife and leaving a trail of death and destruction behind him. Odd’s wife Felicia has gone missing on an alcoholic bender. A law student who is either going to become a criminal lawyer or quickly need one (bet on the latter) gets himself in huge trouble with a local drug kingpin and makes a desperate move to extricate himself from his situation. A trio of enforcers terrorize a city, looking for a stolen cache of heroin. Everything --- and I do mean everything --- is closely connected, though it is not immediately obvious as to how this will come to be. Hence the title. While the four classical elements --- earth, fire, air, and water --- are well known to students, the fifth element or aether or quintessence was considered by the classical Greeks to be the invisible substance which united the Universe. That’s an oversimplification, and not strictly correct, but you want a book review and not a course on physics, correct? THE FIFTH ELEMENT (the book) derives its name, and its plot, from this concept. Brekke begins knitting the disparate elements and characters of his novel together from the first page but doesn’t really make it obvious until the final third of the book. You won’t be able to put it down along the way.

You don’t need to have read or even know what has gone before in order to enjoy THE FIFTH ELEMENT, but you’ll want to read both WHERE MONSTERS DWELL and DREAMLESS once you do. Brekke likes to tinker with novel structure in different ways, but he really pulls out all of the stops with THE FIFTH ELEMENT. Oh, and just for grins, he sets up the next (or a future) installment in the series at the very end of this one. The suspense echoes far beyond the last page. Strongly recommended.

Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
© Copyright 2017, The Book Report, Inc. All rights reserved.

Thank you Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for the eARC.
For the first quarter or so I had difficulty 'getting' the story. It jumped back and forth in time and was confusing and muddled with many characters adding to the confusion. Towards the end the many strands came to a cohesive whole but still left me relieved to have come to the end.
Since this is part of a series, it would probably have made a lot more sense had I read the previous books.

The first volume in the Odd Singsaker series was brilliant and I didn't like the second one too much. The Fifth Element goes back to the basics and it is fantastic. At first the structure going back and forth in time was a little confusing, and the sudden introduction of characters we didn't know kept me thinking I was missing something. But it all ends up fitting together so well, that it was exhilarating. All these characters are part of the same story, and only once you've read the whole book will you really get what was going on. Some parts made no sense, until you saw the full picture and then they were key pieces in the puzzle. The plot kept playing with my expectations back and forth. It starts immediately at the end of Dreamless and some of the characters actually follow the case it in the media. Felicia left Odd and he doesn't know where she is. This ties with a new investigation that Odd is not supposed to work on (on account of nearly having been murdered at the end of the last volume). But when Felicia's car is found at the scene, he gets involved. You know that he is hiding something from Internal Affairs, but what is it? I can't say much more about the plot, only that it is twisty, smart and very, very entertaining.

Jørgen Brekke left us with a real cliff hanger, will Odd come out of it alive or will Sving red his revenge in London, that's the question the textbook will answer. He's made me wonder if characters were alive or dead several times making me sweat it out. He makes each character likable and then pow, he either kills them off or somehow brings them back to life. I'm amazed that he does this without ruining the story. He keeps several plots going through the story line making them all run together. This is a book worth reading.

I've been enjoying this series, despite a bit much gore and other grossness. This one lacked that element, instead relying on suspense. The problem was that the jumping around in time (a style I normally enjoy) was just SO disjointed that the suspense never really built. There was WAY too much reliance on coincidence. There wasn't enough character development of Odd and Felicia, who were largely absent from the story despite their involvement in it - which makes no sense but is true. And while the wrap-up of the suspense plot was really exciting and somewhat clever, it didn't make much sense with what the reader is told about the characters involved. I kind of feel like I just got off one of the teacups at an amusement park- I'll still read the next entry and hope it's a smoother but exhilarating ride!

It’s like something out of a nightmare. Police inspector Odd Singsaker has been captured and held prisoner on an island off the coast of Norway. When he comes to, Odd is holding a gun and lying next to a dead body. What does this have to do with the disappearance of his estranged wife, Felicia? It turns out Felicia wanted to reconcile with her husband, but on her way back to him, she disappeared in a snowstorm. In his search for his missing wife, Odd will come up against a college student who has stolen goods from a group of cocaine dealers, the hitman the drug dealers hired to kill him and another cop with a questionable motive