The Bat (Harry Hole, #1)

by Jo Nesbø

Here I am sitting in a bar, Harry thought, listening to a transvestite lecturing on Australian politics. He felt at home, a bit like Harrison Ford in the bar scene in Star Wars.

“There’s not a lot that’s important.”

I’d more or less surmised that Andrew hadn’t grown up with his own family, that he doesn’t belong anywhere but floats along on the surface and sees things from the outside. Like us here, observing a world which we cannot take part in.

“It’s a bad job on God’s part to give a man with so little intelligence such a good eye for detail,”

Christ, we’re living in Sydney, the only town in the world where people are closet heteros.”

“Six thousand people die in a tidal wave in India and are mentioned in a single newsflash. One homosexual clown has a few limbs cut off and it’s a world event.”

It kept Death—the stranger he didn’t know how to confront—at arm’s length for the moment.

“Can’t you keep an eye on me, Sandra? Just tonight. For Andrew’s sake. What am I saying? For my sake.”