The Redbreast (2000)

A third good Harry Hole mystery, with the usual very dark elements. He sure knows how to make the skin crawl, that's for sure. ( )

It is so rare to read 147 pages into a mystery: and stop. I did. Too tense for me. The violence is subtle. I like the protagonist, but it is not a book to read before sleeping. I quit. ( )

Although I love the whole Harry Hole series, I think that this may have been the best-written one of those I've read so far. LOVE! ( )

x ( )

This is my introduction to the Harry Hole series about which there has been much acclaim. I can understand that now. Hole is just complicated enough to be interesting. He’s a bit of a loner but he’s not antisocial. In fact he may have found someone to share his life with in this book; we’ll have to see where that leads.
The book starts with Hole and his partner standing security for the American President’s trip to Oslo to try to broker a peace between Israel and Palestine. Harry sees a figure in a toll booth which is supposed to be empty. It may be an American secret service agent but they weren’t informed anyone would be coming. So Harry approaches the booth waiting for Ellen to honk the horn to tell him it is a secret service agent but the President’s cavalcade is at the booth and Harry can’t hold off any longer. He shoots the person a second before the horn blares to signal it is an American agent. The agent lives and the Americans admit that they were at fault. There’s no public announcement but the Powers that Be figure it won’t be long until someone finds out. They decide to remove Hole from the Oslo police and give him a promotion as a government inspector in a department that looks into threats to security. Hole is assigned to examine incoming reports and pass on any he thinks may be credible which essentially means all of them. However one report deals with a very expensive rifle being smuggled into Norway and Harry asks to be able to examine this report himself. This leads him to chase down surviving men who joined the Nazis after Norway was taken over. One of them is probably the person who ordered the rifle and Hole believes it is going to be used in an assassination. He just has to find out which ex-soldier it is and what the target is. In an interesting plot twist the reader also is privy to the ex-soldier’s thoughts as he goes about getting the rifle and setting up a spot to fire from. However the reader never knows who the man is because he is always just called The Old Man.
There is quite a bit of background about the Norwegians fighting with the Germans on the Eastern Front which was interesting. Apparently some Dutch also joined the German army. We always hear about the brave members of the Resistance during the war but this is the first I’ve really read anything about people who collaborated with the Germans. ( )