Jo Nesbø

Ooof. I'm exhausted. The length of this novel - more than 700 pages - may have something to do with it. But the impossible pace and number of sub-plots in this very noir indeed detective novel keep the adrenalin buzzing. There are plenty of murders which are the stuff of nightmares, plenty of political (with a small 'p')shenanigans back at Police HQ, and a sleuth, Harry Hole, who's the stuff of nightmares too: alcoholic, drug-addict, anti-authority. It was a can't-put-it-down read, but at the same time, I'm in no hurry to read any more Harry Hole sagas: I can't stand the pace. My next read may be something soothing, an everyday story of countryfolk… (more)

Well, this was utterly dreadful, wasn't it? And I don't mean that in a good way.

There's so much wrong with this, that the somewhat slightly coherent wrap-up in no way justifies the crap the reader has to wade through in the first 90% to get there.

I don't want to spoil anything for anyone wanting to read this, so I'll just say this: The book is split into three parts, the first being about 75% of the book, and, while it starts with a bang, it swiftly goes down the nonsensical hill from there, hitting every bump and pothole along the way.

There was a social media post that went around a year or two ago where the poster said something along the lines of, "this book feels like the writer was making up as they went along" and there's some sort of sarcastic response from a big name author that basically says, "Ummm...who's gonna tell him?" It's played for laughs, and it is rather humorous. However, I understand exactly what that original poster was saying now.

By the end of this first section, it feels like Nesbo literally had no plan, no plot, no idea of what he was going to write next and so just barfed out whatever showed up in his noggin at that particular moment. The plot holds no logic, it's just a mess of "this happens, then this happens, then this"... Characters change their minds too easily. Things happen that are utterly ridiculous.

But wait, you think that's bad? Wait'll you hit the section section. It's far shorter, but it's even more ridiculous. I don't know that I've ever got to within 30 pages of the end of a book and decided it wasn't worth finishing, but I've never come closer to doing it than with this book. As bad as the first section was, the second was far worse. Nesbo piles ridiculousness on top of ridiculousness until it's a teetering tower that he really doesn't have any way out of.

Instead, he jumps to the third and final section, which appears to be the justification for the previous two bits.

I understand what he was trying to do, but the experiment was an abject and utter failure. If you're going to go the route this book went, then you have to build a strong, coherent, and frankly brilliant story to build up to it.

Something along the lines of what was done in The Usual Suspects is my first thought.

Nesbo...did not do this. He had elements that he slapped together. He moved the characters from one element to the next. But it was not an entertaining story, it was not a coherent story, and it was not a good story.

This was awful.

Last year, it took until August to find the worst book I read all the way through. This year, it happened within the first three days of April.… (more)

Harry Hole book # 12

Hole is a legend in the Oslo police force and is notorious for his heavy drinking and by now his wife Rakel had enough and has kicked out, Harry is on his own.

“Knife”, is another dark twisted mystery by Nesbo. The opening scenes involve an old man at a hunting shop, a gruesome sexual assault and Hole waking up with blood on himself after a drunken night at a bar but even before he sobers up, he is hit by a tornado Rakel has been murdered. His colleagues want him to stay out of the case because they can’t rule him out as her killer. The preliminary evidence points to Svein Finne, a long career rapist and murderer. Staying out of this case is not an option,“ The only thing Harry can do is investigate murders and drink”.....and he will do just that....

This story takes most of 450 pages or so in order to tell us how these moments fit into the puzzle, so be patient it is a long and heavy read.....in the final 100 pages the many disparate threads are so cleverly pulled that it is hard to stop reading. “Knife” is real Nesbo and this story has everything I have come to expect by him: a layered plot, a gritty atmosphere, an immerse pacing, plenty of red herrings and our beloved trouble detective. This has to be Nesbo’s darkest story and the most emotionally affective. It is told with a razor- sharp prose and is populated by fully shaped psychologically believable characters.

Knife is brutal, raw and nerve wrecking.… (more)