Jo Nesbo | Book Chatter

The Redbreast
By Jo Nesbø
(Harper, Mass Market Paperback, 9780062068422, August 2011, 576pp.)

The Short of It:

Took a little time for the story to build but ended up being a rather satisfying read.

The Rest of It:

This will be short because my hand is a hurtin’!

This story is a mix of old and new and leaps back and forth in the telling. Part war story, part crime fiction. The war story involves the Norwegian’s fight against the Russians which leads up to the creation of a neo-Nazi movement in Oslo right around the turn of the 21st century.

In the present day, Officer Harry Hole accidentally shoots a secret service agent and is given a “promotion” which basically means that he is assigned to a glorified desk job. However, when he realizes that the shell casings from that day appear to be from a weapon that is no longer around, he digs deeper and what he finds goes all the way back to WWII.

The Redbreast is the third book in the series featuring Detective Harry Hole but it was not my first time meeting Harry. No, I started with book #5 The Devil’s Star and have been reading them out-of-order ever since. The books are wonderful but they have been translated out-of-order which makes it ~~difficult~~ impossible to read them in order. In fact, the first two books are not available anywhere so you make do with what you can get.

However, the evolution of Harry as a person is what keeps me reading and I don’t mind taking these trips back into his past to see how he started out. The latest books in the series seem tighter and more fast paced whereas the older books include quite a bit of set-up. The first half of The Redbreast was very slow and tedious for me, but once I passed the halfway mark I was in familiar territory and loving every minute.

Nesbo’s books contain a sophisticated air that I don’t normally detect in American crime fiction. The tone is a bit different and although I can’t quite put my finger on why, it works for me. If you enjoy well-written crime fiction, you cannot go wrong with this series. Even if you have to read them out-of-order.

Source: Purchased
Disclosure: This post contains Indiebound affiliate links.

The Snowman
Book #7 (Harry Hole Series)
By Jo Nesbø; Don Bartlett (Translator)
(Knopf, Hardcover, 9780307595867, 400pp, May 2011)

*No Spoilers*

The Short of It:

The Snowman is full of twists and turns. It’s the type of book that you cook with, sleep with and eat with. I could not turn the pages fast enough. It was that good.

The Rest of It:

A funny thing happened while reading this book. Jill and I were gushing over The Devil’s Star, which is also part of the Harry Hole series so when an opportunity came up for us to read The Snowman, we jumped at the chance. We jumped so fast that we didn’t realize that we missed the book in between (#6, The Redeemer). Jill informed me of this when I was about three chapters in, but you know what? It didn’t matter! Yes, there were some personal tidbits regarding Harry himself that would have been nice to know, but it didn’t affect the story at all. I mean, I started the series with book #5 anyway so it really didn’t matter.

This book was fantastic! I am loving Scandinavian crime fiction and Nesbø is a master storyteller. There’s just something about the texture and mood of his writing that appeals to me. The story begins in Oslo with a young boy waking up to the first snow of the season. His mother is missing, and in her place is a snowman, wearing her scarf. As Harry is called in to investigate, another woman is reported missing and the pattern is repeated. Each time, the snowman becoming more gruesome than the last.

Harry is an interesting character and constantly evolving. His personal life is always stressed in some way and he’s always teetering on the edge of destruction. Sometimes he’s on the wagon (recovering alcoholic) and other times he caves to his weaknesses, but this is what I love about Harry. Professionally, there is never anyone else more suited to the job, yet you wonder if he will ever pull it together and as a reader, you cheer him on and hope for the best. I can’t think of any other time when I’ve cheered a detective on.

I got my coworker to read it and he’s come in here three times to tell me who the killer is, and each time he’s been wrong! Nesbø is so good at what he does.

If you’ve never read Scandinavian crime fiction, give this series a try. The only challenge is that some of the books are not currently available in the US. That’s why Jill and I had to read them out-of-order, but The Book Depository has a few of them (they ship for free) and you might be able to get some of them from other sources. I am hoping that once the entire series has been released someone will publish them as a complete set. It sounds like a hassle to seek these books out but you won’t be sorry if you do.

Jill is also reviewing it today, so stop by and see what she has to say about it!

Source: Sent to me by the publisher.

Note:

Mr. Nesbø doesn’t know it but I am completely obsessed with ~~him~~ his writing. So much so, that I have a small poster of him hanging in my office. If you’d like to know more about Mr. Nesbø, visit his website.

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links.

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