Nådeskudd (Kill Shot)

Nådeskudd is a new Harry Hole novel, but it is also partly an Oleg Fauke novel: a crime story about filmmaking, authorship, murder as performance, and the poisonous need to be seen. The Norwegian title means something like Mercy Shot or Coup de Grâce, and in the book it refers both to a final killing blow and to the “last take” of an actor’s final shooting day.

The novel opens with an unnamed first-person narrator sitting before a blank sheet in a typewriter just before New Year. He calls himself “fortelleren” — “the narrator” — and says he is about to create a work of art no one can ignore. He quotes Warriors: “No reason, I just like doing things like that.” He plans to write, shoot, direct, act in and edit his own final film. He will call it simply Filmen, “The Film.”

The first victim is Felicia Henie, a former actress from the old Norwegian film Predikanten, now a heroin-addicted street prostitute in Oslo’s Kvadraturen. She hates being looked at, even though beauty and the gaze once gave her a career. On New Year’s Eve she is picked up by a man in a black car and taken to a work barrack near Middelalderparken. He has set the room up like a film set, with Fresnel lamps and a camera. Felicia protests: “Du får ikke filme” — “You can’t film.” He replies, “Jeg vil bare se. Jeg vil se alt” — “I only want to watch. I want to see everything.”