Blood on Snow

I've read and enjoyed every adult book Jo Nesbo has written. His Harry Hole novels are a favourite. But I've also enjoyed the stand alones - including his newest book - Blood on Snow.

1976 Oslo, Norway. Olav has worked for crime syndicate boss Daniel Hoffmann for a number of years. But, it took him a bit to find the right job within the organization. He turned out to be no good as a pimp, a getaway driver, a robber or a drug dealer. But....he found his niche as a fixer. Olav doesn't fix things - he to fixes people. Permanently.

All seems to be going well, until Daniel Hoffmann gives Olav his latest assignment - Daniel wants his wife fixed. This time the job doesn't go quite as it should....

"When exactly do you reach the point where you show more know so much about your boss that he starts to get worried? And when you do you know he's beginning to wonder if he ought to fix the fixer?"

Now, after that cold blooded description, what you wouldn't expect is to feel sympathy for Olav - but I did. There's more to Olav than meets the eye. Nesbo has created a wonderful anti-hero - one I was actually rooting for.

All the elements of Nesbo's writing that I enjoy are packed into just over 200 pages. Short sharp dialogue, brutal situations and an intensity throughout it all - but always with an undertone and a conscience lurking beneath the violence. Astute readers will capture and appreciate the nods to Hugo's Les Misérables as Olav's tale unfolds.

Blood on Snow is easily devoured in a night's sitting and is a treat for those fans missing Harry. (me included!) show less

Reading that a Hogarth Shakespeare take on [Macbeth] had been published caught my interest. But who was this Jo Nesbø who authored it? Wiki informed me that Nesbø is a Norwegian author of crime/mystery novels. [Blood on Snow] revealed to me just how skilled an inventor and writer of such material he is.

Olav Johansen, Nesbø's narrator, tells us he's a "fixer," by which he means a killer. An Oslo drug lord took Olav on and tried him in several capacities before realizing that the one task Olav is good at is killing, mostly competitors. But Olav struggles with the greater context of every murder. Tormented by knowing that one of his victims had a wife and several small children, he gives her the payment the killing earned him. Assigned show more to wring money from an addict, Olav learns that the girlfriend has offered to work as a prostitute to liquidate the debt. He extricates her from her bargain and tries to hide her from both her addict boyfriend and the drug lord's debt collector. Moreover, though she's plain looking and has a limp, he's drawn to her.

Olav's torment ratchets up when the boss commissions him to fix his (the boss's) wife; she's having an affair. Renting a hotel room directly across from the boss's apartment (yeah, convenient, isn't it?) he spends several days observing the unfaithful wife. Her lover shows up and beats her and then fucks her. (Sorry, but that's what he does.) What to make of this? Is the wife really unfaithful? Or is she a victim of this brute?

Olav's considered response to what he's witnessed releases a blizzard (it's Norway) of unpleasant violence and woe. A masterful creation, a masterful conclusion. I give 'er both thumbs up. show less

Wow! Another unmitigated beauty by the master of the thriller (see 'The Son' for another beauty by Nesbo). I tried 'The Bat', the first Harry Hole police detective thriller, but got stopped in my tracks already before I reached the 50 pages mark – boringgg.. stupid serial killer, chased by alcoholic lonely dectective, bla, bla. But this blood on snow is a real diamond! (MIND, SPOILERS BELOW!!)

Completely written in the first person with a hitman as main character. Olav is a clean, crystal clear, almost crispy thinking and acting personality – hired to kill, or be killed. In the opening scene he shoots one of the Fisherman’s men, with the blood dripping on the hard frozen snow displaying the colours of a King’s mantle. It ends show more with the protagonist himself frozen, his blood having formed a stark red-white pattern in the hard powdery snow.

In between, Olav kills his boss’s son (without knowing he was the son) instead of the cheating wife of his boss, as ordered by the latter. Next Olav elopes with her, while all the time declaring his love to a deaf-dumb girl working as cashier in the local supermarket (he follows her daily on her trip home in the underground). After his act, Olav knows it is either him or his boss, so he goes to the main competitor, the Fisherman, and offers him to kill his boss. While this is the main plot, Nesbo manages to have Olav relate his youth, how he got to kill his own alcoholic, violent father with a ski-stick; how he suffered for his mother who lived a totally altruistic life. Next the plot thickens, with Olav having thought of a sheer perfect way of getting rid of his boss (by getting himself and two helpers of the Fisherman into empty coffins in the crypt where the deceased son has been kept for burial and mourning). But they counted beyond the sister and her husband, their child, and the mother. In a dramatic scene, the boss gets shot, as does his main bodyguard. But also the son-in-law and his daughter. Next the treacherous henchman of the Fisherman gets killed by a Russian bodyguard outside, which leaves Olav and ‘the Dane’ to run away – and that’s when Olav gets shot. He is left for dead, which he is not. Olav manages to get back to his flat where the woman does not manage to hide her surprise. She binds his wounds, he falls asleep, and when he wakes up he sees her in the phone box outside. Then he knows, the smell of ammonia has given her away. It is the smell of the Fish shop. He asks how many more minuets he has. Twenty. He runs off, manages once more to take the Volvo, but the bleeding of his leg does not stop. In the end he crashes the car, in front of the shop of the deaf-dumb girl. In his delirium he is discovered by the girl, Maria, and she fixes him up by taking him in the car to a surgeon friend. But in reality, he is found the next morning, frozen, in front of the shop, leaving her a love letter.

Only 185 widely spaced pages, fast moving, with lovely twists, and yet this gem contains so much that is good about a thriller. Nesbo is good and let’s hope he learns to forget about boring police procedurals… show less

This is the second Jo Nesbo book I have read. The other was The Snowman. This guy is terrific.
What a voice he has. I do not think there is a better Crime/Mystery writer out there today. Some just as good, but none better.
In this book, Nesbo has managed to create a complex,sympathetic anti-hero. A ruthless hitman who kills with cold-blooded efficiency, but has the capacity for empathy for the downtrodden. His fatal flaw.
By making the protagonist,Olav, the narrator of the story Nesbo puts the reader right inside his head.
There are plenty of twists and turns to keep the pages turning, but this is more than a story about a hit man, that is just the vehicle Nesbo uses to tell a poignant story about the human condition.

Blood on Snow by Jo Nesbo is a very highly recommended Nordic noir crime novel about a paid assassin.

It is 1977 and Christmas time in Oslo. Olav Johansen is a hit man, a fixer for the crime boss and drug kingpin Daniel Hoffmann. Olav, a sensitive, thoughtful man with dyslexia came into this position because he was seemingly unsuited for any other position within the crime organization. Fixing people is the one thing he has been successful at accomplishing.

After finishing a fix, Olav is contacted by Hoffmann for another job. This time Hoffmann wants Olav to fix his new, young wife, Corina. This puts Olav into a dangerous position. He already knows too much about his boss's past and this new fix will likely result in Olav being the next show more target. If he refuses the job, he will also likely be the next target. Olav must figure out a plan to survive. In the meantime, while watching Corina, Olav begins to become smitten with her.

I was totally engrossed in Blood on Snow from beginning to end. I can see why movie rights have been purchased for this short novel. Olav isn't the usual tough talking assassin. He's sensitive, a reader, thoughtful, and impossibly soft-hearted man who has compassion, even while being very good at his job. Nesbo excels at character development and does a great job with Olav in a smaller number of pages than one usually finds in one of his books.

This is sure to draw new fans to Nesbo's Harry Hole novels. While fans of Harry Hole might miss him here, I thought this was a very engaging, compelling novel and I was completely immersed in the action and invested in the character of Olav.
Disclosure: My Kindle edition was courtesy of Knopf Doubleday for review purposes. show less

A somewhat different sort of fiction from Jo Nesbø, which carries his usual complex characters and subtly sudden twists of plot. Olav Johansen, the central character, isn't very good at a lot of things: he makes a lousy get-away driver, he's not good as a bank robber or as a pimp. But he is good at being a fixer: the guy who does the dirty jobs for the boss and kills on demand. Nothing personal, of course. Someone wants somebody else dead and Olav is the guy for the job. The book opens with Olav on an assignment, and moves on to his next job, which proves to be a bit sticky: to kill the boss's wife at the request of that same boss. Things get complex, in true Nesbø style, though because of the length of the story it doesn't evolve show more into Harry Hole detail. There's a great interpretation by Olav of Les Misérables, which probably would have surprised Hugo, and makes the reader wonder at the Olav's perceptions in general. But, it's a good read, though a quick one. I did notice this is referred to as "Blood on Snow #1" which makes me wonder of Nesbø is going to give us a series of stories from the viewpoint of the criminal now. show less

The hitman for a crime boss is given an assignment that doesn't sit well with him. The boss wants his own wife killed, an order that the hitman finds so strange that he decides to observe his target for a while and find out why this woman is to die.
This is well-written and excellently translated, a character driven story of a hitman who is smarter than he claims and more humane than he wants to be.