Cockroaches

The Norwegian ambassador is found murdered in a Bangkok brothel. In Oslo, they rush to cover up the scandal and dispatch to Thailand a police inspector named Harry Hole: he must conduct the investigation as confidentially as possible. In Bangkok’s seedy places, among opium houses and strip bars, Harry gradually discovers that the murder case is far from as obvious as it seemed at first. Cockroaches rustle behind the baseboards. Someone is hiding in the dark—and that someone can’t stand daylight.

According to rumors from the Norwegian colony in Thailand, the ambassador was killed in early sixties in Bangkok—not by crashing his car, as one might think, but under very mysterious circumstances. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs denied the rumors, and the body was cremated the very next day, even though an official autopsy was refused. Any coincidences between the heroes and events in the novel and reality should be considered accidental. Reality, however, is far more unbelievable.

Bangkok, February 23, 1998