Norwegian writer Jo Nesbo’s latest novel is a stand-alone, not part of his Harry Hole series, and it provides yet another example of Nesbo’s immense talent as a story-teller. In this novel, however, Nesbo lets his darkest, most deadpan humor loose in a wild but carefully constructed mystery in which the several sections of the novel parallel textbook recommendations regarding interviewing and hiring candidates for executive positions – seemingly a straightforward process. Nesbo turns the whole thing all on its head, however. Nesbo’s “headhunter,” Roger Brown, though much in demand both by individuals looking for new opportunities and by corporations seeking the perfect new president, is a loathsome human being, but he is as close to a “hero” as one gets in this page-turner. He has powerful enemies who are at least as clever, at least as opportunistic, and certainly as amoral at he is. By limiting his focus to these characters, however, Nesbo frees himself from the limitations of a police procedural and can take his story in new directions, omitting the law entirely from almost all of the action, and creating a plot in which Roger Brown and his enemies essentially play a game in which the “king of the chessboard” is the person who survives.
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In The Snowman, the latest of five Nesbo novels to be translated into English, is a complete surprise with its element of horror, but it may soon become his most popular novel here in the U.S., a breakthrough novel which may finally put to rest the misperception that the Norwegian Nesbo, with a total of sixteen award-winning novels, is some kind of “successor” to the Swedish Stieg Larsson. A series of disappearances and/or murders, all involving a snowman on the site, challenge Harry Hole and his men as they try to find a serial killer who began his killings in 1992 and has continued to 2004, as the novel opens. The novel is detailed and intelligent, and will keep even the most jaded mystery lover intrigued and wanting to see how it is all resolved. When the last little piece falls into place at the end, every detail at every point in the novel suddenly all makes sense—and provides a satisfying sense of finality to this challenging case. A non-stop thriller that may very well keep you up reading till the wee hours—and great fun!
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For lovers of Nordic Noir, there’s a new guy in town—at least someone new to me. K. O. Dahl (Kjell Ola Dahl), a highly respected and prize-winning author in Norway, has just had his third novel published in the U.S., though it was the first of the three books to be published in the series in Norway. Featuring pudgy Detective Frank Frolich and his boss, the taciturn Chief Inspector Gunnarstranda, Dahl focuses more on the victims and those who surround them than he does on his sleuths, not even giving physical descriptions of his detectives till many pages into the book. This focuses the action clearly on the victim(s) and helps create a suspenseful and often dramatic novel which sometimes devolves into philosophical, social, and psychological discussions as his characters meet and interact. When a young woman who has almost completed three years of drug rehab is found dead above a lake, Det. Frolich and Chief Insp. Gunnarstranda investigate her past to find her killer.
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Anyone who enjoys mysteries is surely familiar by now with the growing list of Nordic authors who specialize in crime and all its horror, but these authors do not write purely for macabre sensation (though the macabre is not unknown to them). All are writers with larger themes and scopes, and many use repeating characters who keep the reader involved as they solve new crimes and reveal more and more personal aspects from their own lives. For Stieg Larsson, it was journalist Mikael Blomqvist and his computer expert friend Lisbeth Salander. For Henning Mankell, it is Kurt Wallender. For Arnaldur Indridason, the darkest of the novelists, it is Inspector Erlendur, known by his last name almost exclusively. Jo Nesbo features Harry Hole, and Karin Fossum, the most psychological of the authors, repeats with Inspecter Sejer. For Camilla Lackberg, all her novels take place in her own hometown, Fjallbacka, a fishing community in which the whole town’s characters play a role. Her second novel to be translated into English, THE PREACHER, is due in April. (Links to reviews of books by six authors follow.)
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A man’s compulsion to do what he considers good and right, even though it requires him to act in ways that society and the law consider morally and legally wrong, permeates this book on all levels, with several characters assuming this role of “Redeemer” in their actions throughout the novel. Norwegian author Jo Nesbo, in this fourth novel of the Harry Hole series to be published in English, introduces three seemingly disparate plot lines in this thriller set in Oslo—a hired assassin from Croatia is fulfilling contract killings in Europe and has just arrived in Oslo for his last job; the Salvation Army, its officers and soldiers, are trying to fulfill their mission by providing food, clothing, and shelter to those most in need of their help, no questions asked; and Harry Hole, an alcoholic police inspector, who is sometimes off-the-wagon, is still trying to find the Big Boss behind the gun-running and related crimes which brought down one of his fellow police inspectors in The Devil’s Star, the previous novel in this series. Despite his unwillingness (and sometimes inability) to follow the rules, Harry believes in justice, no matter how it is brought about. He, too, can be a Redeemer.
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