Picture of author.

Jo Nesbø

Author of The Snowman

140+ Works 43,738 Members 1,720 Reviews 87 Favorited

About the Author

Jo Nesbø was born on March 29, 1960 in Molde, Norway. He graduated from the Norwegian School of Economics with a degree in economics and business administration. He worked as a freelance journalist and a stockbroker before he began his writing career. He is the author of The Harry Hole series and show more The Doctor Proctor series. The 2011 film Headhunters is based on his novel Hodejegerne (The Headhunters). In 2017 he made The New York Times Best Seller List with his title, The Thirst. He is also the main vocalist and songwriter for the Norwegian rock band Di Derre. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Image credit: Credit: Hannibal (Wikipedia user), Gothenburg Book Fair 2007

Series

Works by Jo Nesbø

The Snowman (2010) 5,347 copies
The Redbreast (2000) 4,458 copies
The Bat (2012) 3,796 copies
Nemesis (2008) 3,300 copies
The Devil's Star (2005) 3,247 copies
The Leopard (2009) 2,967 copies
The Redeemer (2009) 2,709 copies
Phantom (2012) 2,313 copies
Cockroaches (1998) 2,277 copies
Police (2013) 1,964 copies
Headhunters (2008) 1,855 copies
The Son (2014) 1,624 copies
The Thirst (2017) 1,395 copies
Blood on Snow (2015) 1,050 copies
Macbeth (2018) 1,050 copies
Knife (2019) 848 copies
Midnight Sun (2015) 837 copies
The Kingdom (2020) 588 copies
Doctor Proctor's Fart Powder (2007) 455 copies
Killing Moon (2022) 329 copies
Bubble in the Bathtub (2008) 204 copies
Who Cut the Cheese? (2012) 169 copies
The Night House (2023) 169 copies
The Magical Fruit (2013) 111 copies
Harry Hole: Books 1-10 (1970) 57 copies
Silent (but Deadly) Night (2016) 42 copies
The White Hotel (2007) 20 copies
Karusellmusikk : noveller (2001) 15 copies
The Bat | Cockroaches (2006) 10 copies
Serum CD (2006) 3 copies
La Casa de la Noche (2023) 3 copies
The Snowman, Part 2 (2017) 2 copies
Syn 2 copies
Scarafaggi (2017) 2 copies
The Snowman, Part 1 (2007) 2 copies
The Leopard, Part 2 (2018) 1 copy
The Leopard, Part 1 (2018) 1 copy
The Redbreast, Part 2 (2017) 1 copy
The Redbreast, Part 1 (2017) 1 copy
Il pettirosso (2017) 1 copy
Zedj (2017) 1 copy
Noz (2019) 1 copy
Netopyr' (miag) (2014) 1 copy
℗Il ℗coltello (2020) 1 copy
Verekuu 1 copy
GUSHEKUQI 1 copy
Snješko 1 copy
Slāpes : romāns (2018) 1 copy
Nemesi (2017) 1 copy
The Thidrst 1 copy
LA CASA DELLE TENEBRE (2023) 1 copy
La Casa de la Nit (2024) 1 copy
Occupied 1 copy
Smäd 1 copy
Le sauveur 1 copy
Prízraky 1 copy
The Redeemer, Part 2 (2019) 1 copy
Stemmer fra Balkan (1999) 1 copy
The Redeemer, Part 1 (2019) 1 copy
Nemesis, Part 2 (2019) 1 copy
Nemesis, Part 1 (2019) 1 copy
Pancierové srdce (2013) 1 copy
Harry Hole: Books 1-8 (2010) 1 copy
Leur domaine 1 copy
℗Il ℗fratello (2022) 1 copy
Luna rossa 1 copy
Liliacul (2018) 1 copy

Associated Works

Hunger (1890) — Introduction, some editions — 4,742 copies
The Man on the Balcony (1968) — Introduction, some editions — 1,311 copies
The Best Mystery Stories of the Year: 2022 (2022) — Contributor — 40 copies
Headhunters [2011 film] (2014) — Original novel — 28 copies
Jackpot [2011 film] (2011) — Story — 5 copies
Bubble in the Bathtub [2015 film] — Original novel — 1 copy
Occupied (2015- TV Series) — Original Idea — 1 copy

Tagged

audiobook (216) Australia (157) crime (1,741) crime fiction (1,076) crime novel (120) detective (536) ebook (469) fiction (3,074) Harry Hole (1,326) Kindle (398) Krim (242) library (130) literature (202) murder (349) mystery (2,475) mystery-thriller (157) nordic noir (170) Norway (1,839) Norwegian (592) Norwegian fiction (127) Norwegian literature (391) novel (411) Oslo (569) police (174) police procedural (223) policier (114) read (408) Roman (159) Scandinavia (171) Scandinavian (242) Scandinavian literature (151) serial killer (169) series (326) suspense (278) Sweden (115) thriller (1,190) to-read (2,424) translated (119) translation (195) unread (130)

Common Knowledge

Canonical name
Nesbø, Jo
Birthdate
1960-03-29
Gender
male
Nationality
Norway
Birthplace
Oslo, Norway
Places of residence
Oslo, Norway
Molde, Norway
Education
Norwegian School of Economics
Occupations
crime novelist
stockbrocker
singer
musician
professional football player
Organizations
Di Derre [musical group]
Awards and honors
Glasnöklen (Glass Key Award)
Agent
Niclas Salomonsson (Salomonsson Agency)
Short biography
JO NESBØ is a musician, songwriter, and economist, as well as a writer. His Harry Hole novels include The Redeemer, The Snowman, The Leopard and Phantom, and he is also the author of several stand-alone novels and the Doctor Proctor series of children's books. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Glass Key for best Nordic crime novel.

Members

Reviews

A different style of Jo Nesbo book-- sort of retro horror, with a touch of YA, but I enjoyed it.
 
Flagged
bookczuk | 7 other reviews | Feb 24, 2024 |
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)
 
Flagged
Tigerpaw70 | 25 other reviews | Feb 18, 2024 |
This Nordic noir thriller, the first in Jo Nesbø’s Harry Hole series and his debut novel, was slow to draw me in. Harry Hole is an Oslo detective in Australia sent to eventually accompany the remains of and observe the investigation into the rape and strangling of a Norwegian citizen, Inger Holter, who once hosted a Norwegian children’s TV show but had been working in a Sydney bar when she died. While is not technically supposed to be involved, he discovers a string of linked murders, which renders him the de facto leader of an investigation into a serial killer with a complicated profile. Mr. Hole has issues, and some of the novel is center on his wrestling match with his demons in order to catch the murderer.… (more)
 
Flagged
bschweiger | 186 other reviews | Feb 4, 2024 |
(2009) Harry Hole is good as usual, but this one got a little bit too violent, even for Nesb.Kirkus: Another spooky gothic by Norwegian gloomster Nesb¨ (The Snowman, 2011, etc.), the poet laureate of boreal psychopathy. If there were a dictionary-definition image for numbed world-weariness, Oslo detective Harry Hole would be it, in just the way that Edvard Munch's The Scream is the canonical image of terror. (When the film is made, only the Stellan Skarsg?rd of Insomnia will do.) As Nesb¨'s newest procedural opens, Hole has taken himself into a Hong Kong exile, where he ponders the smog that builds up thicker and thicker from mainland China and fills his own modest room with the smoke from his opium water pipe. Enter Kaja Solness, Oslo gumshoe extraordinaire, who needs to find him immediately. Naturally, something very ugly has happened back home; a murder bloody enough to make a Viking of yore lose his lunch has occurred, involving a cruel instrument of torture that shoots out metal spikes: ?Two needles pierced the windpipe and one the right eye, one the left. Several needles penetrated the rear part of the palate and reached the brain.? Yuck. Only Hole, it seems, can divine the mind of someone sick enough to pull off such a thing, and once Hole, plagued by the memories of earlier murders and a constant craving for drink and smoke, is pulled into the case early on in the novel, it's all a go-go-go rush across the continents: Europe, of course, and Asia, but also Africa, where an ugly war is raging off in some backwater of the Congo and where, it develops, a person of interest is conducting a nasty trade. It is vintage Nesb¨ to throw in red herrings and MacGuffins, but also to have Hole engage in a little John Woo?style dance, cop and suspect, in which the bad guy has a definite chance of taking out the good one. Nesb¨'s formula includes plenty of participation by Kaja, a very capable woman, and plenty of current geopolitical backdrop, making Nesb¨ a worthy mysterian-cum-social-critic in the Stieg Larsson tradition. But will good prevail? It's anything but a foregone conclusion.Good for a nightmare or threeÂ¥a taut, fast-paced thriller with wrenching twists and turns.Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2011ISBN: 978-0-307-59587-4Page Count: 544Publisher: KnopfReview Posted Online: Nov. 6, 2011Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2011… (more)
 
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derailer | 103 other reviews | Jan 25, 2024 |

Lists

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Statistics

Works
140
Also by
9
Members
43,738
Popularity
#385
Rating
3.8
Reviews
1,720
ISBNs
2,233
Languages
41
Favorited
87

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