In the third novel in this outstanding mystery series to be released in the US, alcoholic police inspector Harry Hole, “the lone wolf, the drunk, the [Oslo Police] department’s enfant terrible…and the best detective on the sixth floor” has been AWOL from his job for a month, on a bender which he seems unable to end. His life is a disaster from which he seeks temporary solace by drinking himself into oblivion. Norwegian author Jo Nesbo begins this novel with the best three introductory paragraphs that I have read in years. Ostensibly a description of a water leak which works its way from a fifth floor apartment into the apartment below, it is, in reality a menace-filled mood-setter which presages real horror. And when the ceiling in the fourth floor apartment starts to leak on the young couple preparing a pot of potatoes on the stove, Nesbo’s truly wicked sense of humor kicks in, to re-emerge at other critical points in the novel. (A terrific mystery.)
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More like a fiendish sudoku puzzle than a traditional police procedural, this blockbuster novel, set in Oslo, challenges alcoholic Inspector Harry Hole to find solutions to four cold-blooded murders, which may or may not be related. A “square peg” in the police department, Hole does jot hesitate to do things his own way, often infuriating his peers while still inspiring (sometimes grudging) respect for his honesty. A bank robbery in which a gunman executes his female hostage because the bank manager exceeds twenty-five seconds to fill a bag with money is just the start of the non-stop action. As Harry Hole investigates the similarities between this robbery and the stunning earlier robberies by Raskol Baxhet, a gypsy now incarcerated, the reader is jerked every which-way, his/her perceptions constantly changed as new information emerges about the characters and the past. A terrific mystery.
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In the fourth of the Inspector Erlendur series, Gold Dagger Award-winner Arnaldur Indridasson creates a challenging and thought-provoking mystery by revisiting the political complexities of Iceland during the height of the Cold War in the 1970s and 1980s. At this time, many Icelandic young people were resentful of the US presence and its huge naval air station in Keflavik, accusing the US of “spreading filth.” While the US and NATO were using this base for strategic defense against possible USSR aggression, many students, often from poor families, were accepting the chance to study in East Germany at the University of Leipzig, then returning home with their socialist and communist messages. For Inspector Erlendur Sveinsson, busy solving contemporary crimes, this past history has been unimportant, but when an earthquake leads to the unexpected draining of Lake Kleifarvatn, a skeleton, weighed down with a Russian transmitter, emerges from the depths, a large hole in its skull. With no other evidence available, Erlendur’s only hope of identifying the remains rests with his investigation of missing persons from the late 1970s and 1980s.
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Icelandic author Arnaldur Indridason begins his mystery series starring Detective Inspector Erlendur (the Icelandic people do not usually use “last names”) of the Reykjavik Police in this dark and engrossing novel, first translated into English in 2004. Since then, five more novels in the series have been released, all to enormous acclaim. Erlendur, fiftyish and divorced for twenty years, with almost no contact with his ex-wife, tries to maintain contact with his children, his daughter Eva Lind, an actress and active drug addict, and his son Sindri Snaer, who has recently been released from drug rehab for the third time. Called to investigate the death of a sixty-nine-year-old man named Holberg, who has been murdered with a crystal ashtray, he has few clues, except for the unusual message left on the body which says, “I am him.”
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Voted the The Best Mystery of All Time by Norwegian Book Clubs, author Jo Nesbo focuses on the long-term resentments of the now-elderly Norwegian veterans of the Eastern Front who were branded traitors to their country in 1945. These characters and their agendas join in 1999 with the ultra-conservative political agendas held by many Norwegian young professionals, and the still-flourishing neo-Nazi party. This union creates an explosive political and social environment which award-winning Norwegian author Jo Nesbo develops into a thriller full of hatred, violence, and mayhem. Creating parallel narratives, Nesbo alternates the battles and interactions of Norwegian soldiers on the Eastern Front, with the everyday battles of Inspector Harry Hole to preserve order in Oslo against those who sincerely believe that “In His wisdom God so ordained it that an inferior creature is never happier than when serving and obeying a superior creature.”
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