I Read, Therefore I Blog

The Blurb On The Back:

Jon is on the run.

He has betrayed Oslo’s biggest crime lord: The Fisherman.

Fleeting to a mountain town so far north that the sun never sets, Jon hopes to find sanctuary.

Hiding out in the wilderness, all that stands between him and his fate are Lea, a bereaved mother, and her young son, Knut.

But the midnight sun is slowly driving Jon to insanity.

And then he discovers that the Fisherman’s men are getting closer …

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

Jo Nesbo’s crime novella (translated from Norwegian by Neil Smith) is a tightly written affair that has some overlap with earlier novella BLOOD ON SNOW. However, Jon is a surprisingly passive character so the action comes from his failure to act rather, which makes for a bit of a frustrating read and Lea is little more than a standard damsel in distress. That said, there are some interesting plot twists and it held my attention to the end.

The Blurb On The Back:

Harry is out of his depth.

Detective Harry Hole is meant to keep out of trouble. A young Norwegian girl on a gap year in Sydney has been murdered, and Harry has been sent to Australia to assist in any way he can.

He’s not supposed to get too involved …

When the team unearths a string of unsolved murders and disappearances, nothing will stop Harry from finding out the truth. The hunt for a serial killer is on, but the murderer will only talk to Harry.

… But he might just be the next victim.

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

Jo Nesbo’s first Harry Hole novel is a decidedly mixed affair. First published in 1997 but not translated into English until 2012, the first third of the book is gripping as Harry develops a friendship with Kensington and the two start to piece together what happened to Inger. I particularly enjoyed the way Nesbo weaves Aboriginal myth stories into the text and Harry’s descriptions of Australia – notably when he has to visit a small hippy town. However the plot itself judders along in a predictable fashion (with logic at times being sacrificed for the purposes of getting to the next plot event) and despite Nesbo’s red herrings, it’s pretty obvious who the killer is while some of the deaths are signalled too far in advance. I also found Harry’s relationship with Birgitta to be rather dull, although I did enjoy the insights into Hole’s background – probably because this is the first Harry Hole novel I’ve read so it’s new to me. The denouement was, for me, just downright silly and had me rolling my eyes, but it’s testament to Nesbo’s easy writing style (together with Don Bartlett’s smooth translation) that I stayed with this until the end. Despite the faults, there was definitely enough here for me to check out the other Harry Hole novels.