Jo Nesbo

Mar 8 2010

In the Mail: The Devil’s Star

The Devil’s Star Jo Nesbo

Publishers Weekly

A serial killer taunts Harry Hole in Nesbø’s searing third crime novel to feature the Oslo police detective to be made available in the U.S. (after Nemesis). Still suffering from alcohol-fueled demons and obsessed with hunting for evidence against a clearly dirty cop, Hole grudgingly agrees to help look into the murder of a woman whose finger has been amputated and a red diamond stuck under her eyelid. More bodies follow, with the murderer leaving identical five-pointed diamonds (the titular devil’s star) at each crime scene. At first the killings appear to be random, but Hole soon discovers an ominous pattern. Nesbø brilliantly incorporates threads from earlier novels, including Hole’s often tumultuous relationship with his lover, Rakel, without ever losing the current story’s rhythm. Even with—or perhaps because of—his flaws, Hole is arguably one of today’s most fascinating fictional detectives.

By Kevin Holtsberry • In The Mail • 0 • Tags: , ,

Mar 5 2009

Nemesis by Jo Nesbo

Cover of "Nemesis"
Cover of Nemesis

If you like your crime thrillers complex and dense then you will want to check out Norwegian crime writer Jo Nesbo’s latest Nemesis.

Being the lazy blogger that I am, allow me to reproduce the publishers copy to introduce the plot:

Grainy closed-circuit television footage shows a man walking into an Oslo bank and putting a gun to a cashier’s head. He tells the young woman to count to twenty-five. When the robber doesn’t get his money in time, the cashier is executed, and two million Norwegian kroner disappear without a trace. Police Detective Harry Hole is assigned to the case.

While Hole’s girlfriend is away in Russia, an old flame decides to get in touch. Former girlfriend and struggling artist Anna Bethsen invites Hole to dinner, and he can’t resist a visit. But the evening ends in an all too familiar way as Hole awakens with a thundering headache, a missing cell phone, and no memory of the past twelve hours. That same morning, Anna is found shot dead in her bed. Hole begins to receive threatening e-mails. Is someone trying to frame him for this unexplained death? Meanwhile, the bank robberies continue with unparalleled savagery.

As the death toll continues to mount, Hole becomes a prime suspect in a criminal investigation led by his longtime adversary Tom Waaler and Waaler’s vigilante police force. Racing from the cool, autumnal streets of Oslo to the steaming villages of Brazil, Hole is determined to absolve himself of suspicion by uncovering all the information needed to crack both cases. But the ever-threatening Waaler is not finished with his old archenemy quite yet.

Now let me confess that I didn’t read The Redbreast or any other of Nesbo’s earlier works.  To be honest I didn’t want to read a 500 plus page book to see if I wanted to read another almost 500 page book.  Call me closed minded but that is quite a commitment in my world.

So instead I just dived into Harry Hole’s world with no background.  And it worked just fine for the most part.  I am not sure, however, if my not having read the back-story as it were lead to my frustration with the dense and over-layered plot.  And the ending was clearly a “to be continued” situation; which is unsatisfying to a degree.

But as noted above, Nesbo creates a complex – if at times convoluted – story with lots of characters, a dash of psychology and philosophy and enough twists and turns to keep the reader guessing.

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By Kevin Holtsberry • Reviews • 0 • Tags: , , ,