The Leopard

Look up at the star rating I gave this book. It's pretty high. But despite the high rating, I just didn't like this particular iteration of Harry. The characters continued to evolve, their depiction brilliant. The writing was fantastic. The twists and turns enough to make anyone lose their direction. But I still didn't like it. The fault is within my own psyche, I think. The damaged souls that kill others prey on my mind. I'm a healer, and I ache for all the illness, physical and mental, that esbø weaves into his stories. I care about his characters, perhaps too much. And he is perhaps too good a writer for me at times.

This was a marvelous book. It just hurt me to read it. I think I need a break from wounded male detectives of the show more Scandinavian sort. show less

So tief unten war Harry Hole noch nie. Gestrandet in Hongkong, die Nächte in einer Massenunterkunft für Gastarbeiter verbringend, den Geistern der Vergangenheit diesmal mit Opium statt Alkohol entfliehend und auf der Flucht vor den Triaden denen er Geld schuldet. Doch seiner neuen Kollegin Kaja Solness gelingt es, ihn zurück nach Norwegen zu bringen: doch nicht, weil das Morddezernat seine Hilfe braucht, sondern weil sein Vater im Sterben liegt. Und weil er dann schon mal da ist... Die zwei ungeklärten Mordfälle, wegen deren man ihn um Hilfe gebeten hat, erregen seine Neugier und als während seines Aufenthaltes eine dritte Person stirbt, ist sein Interesse geweckt. Als ob diese Todesfälle nicht anspruchsvoll genug wären, findet show more er sich zudem inmitten des Polizeiapparates in einer weiteren Kampfzone bzw. einem Intrigenspiel wieder: Morddezernat und Kriminalamt ringen jeweils um die alleinige Kompetenz für die Aufklärung von Mordermittlungen - und er spielt dabei eine entscheidende Rolle.
Wie auch in seinen bisherigen Büchern (zumindest in den zweien, die ich bisher (leider erst) gelesen habe), ist nichts so wie es scheint, was insbesondere auf die handelnden Personen zutrifft. Immer wieder führt Nesbø vor, wie schnell man sich von Äußerlichkeiten blenden lässt, selbst Harry ist nicht immer dagegen gefeiht. Man fällt von einer Überraschung in die nächste und sogar als man sicher zu sein scheint, die Lösung zu kennen, gelingt es dem Autor noch weitere 150 Seiten Leserinnen und Leser an das Buch zu fesseln. Es sind häufig sehr extreme Wendungen, aber dennoch ist der Verlauf im Nachhinein durchweg in sich schlüssig.
Nesbø schreibt detailliert und anschaulich, wie beispielsweise die Aufenthalte Holes im Kongo oder das Lawinenunglück. Für nicht so blutrünstige Lesende vielleicht etwas zu anschaulich, denn die Darstellungen der unterschiedlichen Todesarten sind teilweise schon heftige Kost. Kein Buch für schwache Gemüter.
Alles in allem beste Thrillerunterhaltung für mehrere Stunden - am besten am Wochenende! Denn man wird sich schwer damit tun, das Buch vor dem Ende aus der Hand zu legen.
Eine Anmerkung noch zum Schluss: Wie der deutsche Verlag auf diesen Titel kam, ist mir (fast) ein Rätsel. Es gibt lediglich einen Absatz im Buch zu diesem Tier (S. 206) und er passt weder auf Harry noch den Täter. Der norwegische Titel Panzerherz wäre deutlich stimmiger gewesen. show less

So tief unten war Harry Hole noch nie. Gestrandet in Hongkong, die Nächte in einer Massenunterkunft für Gastarbeiter verbringend, den Geistern der Vergangenheit diesmal mit Opium statt Alkohol entfliehend und auf der Flucht vor den Triaden denen er Geld schuldet. Doch seiner neuen Kollegin Kaja Solness gelingt es, ihn zurück nach Norwegen zu bringen: doch nicht, weil das Morddezernat seine Hilfe braucht, sondern weil sein Vater im Sterben liegt. Und weil er dann schon mal da ist... Die zwei ungeklärten Mordfälle, wegen deren man ihn um Hilfe gebeten hat, erregen seine Neugier und als während seines Aufenthaltes eine dritte Person stirbt, ist sein Interesse geweckt. Als ob diese Todesfälle nicht anspruchsvoll genug wären, findet show more er sich zudem inmitten des Polizeiapparates in einer weiteren Kampfzone bzw. einem Intrigenspiel wieder: Morddezernat und Kriminalamt ringen jeweils um die alleinige Kompetenz für die Aufklärung von Mordermittlungen - und er spielt dabei eine entscheidende Rolle.
Wie auch in seinen bisherigen Büchern (zumindest in den zweien, die ich bisher (leider erst) gelesen habe), ist nichts so wie es scheint, was insbesondere auf die handelnden Personen zutrifft. Immer wieder führt Nesbø vor, wie schnell man sich von Äußerlichkeiten blenden lässt, selbst Harry ist nicht immer dagegen gefeiht. Man fällt von einer Überraschung in die nächste und sogar als man sicher zu sein scheint, die Lösung zu kennen, gelingt es dem Autor noch weitere 150 Seiten Leserinnen und Leser an das Buch zu fesseln. Es sind häufig sehr extreme Wendungen, aber dennoch ist der Verlauf im Nachhinein durchweg in sich schlüssig.
Nesbø schreibt detailliert und anschaulich, wie beispielsweise die Aufenthalte Holes im Kongo oder das Lawinenunglück. Für nicht so blutrünstige Lesende vielleicht etwas zu anschaulich, denn die Darstellungen der unterschiedlichen Todesarten sind teilweise schon heftige Kost. Kein Buch für schwache Gemüter.
Alles in allem beste Thrillerunterhaltung für mehrere Stunden - am besten am Wochenende! Denn man wird sich schwer damit tun, das Buch vor dem Ende aus der Hand zu legen.
Eine Anmerkung noch zum Schluss: Wie der deutsche Verlag auf diesen Titel kam, ist mir (fast) ein Rätsel. Es gibt lediglich einen Absatz im Buch zu diesem Tier (S. 206) und er passt weder auf Harry noch den Täter. Der norwegische Titel Panzerherz wäre deutlich stimmiger gewesen. show less

Oh, it's hard to believe that Nesbo has outdone himself yet again. Superbly written! I have rarely, if ever, enjoyed a suspense/thriller to this extent.
Leopold's apple: what a fascinating way to kill people. The victim is the accomplice. Awesome!

And Bellman's such a slimy piece of work. You just know he's going to be around longer.
The book begins with Harry in an even deeper s**thole than he normally throws himself into: opium in addition to his alcohol addiction. The way he doggedly unravels the mystery and follows its threads right to the scar on his face is downright fantastic.

*clap clap*

What path in life do you take if you’re getting older, you’re a loner who realizes you’re lonely, your job sucks in particular, and life sucks in general? Several characters grapple with this question in this dark Norwegian police procedural The Leopard, none more so than Oslo detective Harry Hole, who takes a leave from the force, opting for opium in Hong Kong as a means of temporary oblivion.

Harry is still “in recovery” from the brutal serial killer that he chased in the previous Nesbo book, The Snowman. That case led to a colleague’s mental breakdown, and Harry isn’t far from one himself. He is also mourning the lack of contact from his one love Rakel and her son Oleg, with whom Harry was very close. Rakel took Oleg and show more fled Oslo after being almost killed by The Snowman.

Meanwhile, back in Oslo, another vicious serial killer is striking, using a device called Leopold's Apple to torture and kill his victims. Harry's boss sends an attractive detective, Kaja Solnes, to lure Harry to return to Oslo with whatever it takes. But nothing works until Kaja reveals that Harry’s father Olav is in the hospital, suffering from cancer, with not much time to live.

So Harry goes back, and immediately is thrust in the middle of a turf war between two branches of the Ministry of Justice for control of the investigation. His fame as a detective also makes him the focus of the killer, who is fascinated by Harry (but not in a good way, of course!) And the bodies keep piling up.

Discussion: This Harry Hole book is bleaker and more unsentimental than the others. Harry is out of control for much of the time: drunk, high, and vomiting. Moreover, he is viciously attacked and barely escapes death more often than seems reasonable, even for the indominable Harry Hole. (And Harry himself expresses something to the effect of “I can’t believe it” each time.) It doesn’t truly detract from the story as it might in the hands of less able authors. For one thing, Harry does not escape unscathed from these encounters; on the contrary, increasingly he looks like he’s wearing a garish Halloween costume, according to a friend. Psychologically, he is even worse off: criminal confessions make him nauseated, and time with friends and family moves him to tears.

His physical presence still manages to disarm and charm. He is 6’4”, with a shaven skull, “the alcoholic’s washed out, pale blue irises,” and a “determined chin with the surprisingly gentle, almost beautiful mouth.” As his scars accumulate in the book, he needs almost no persuasion to scare off those who would intimidate him, but also gains an irresistible appeal for those who would want to comfort him.

His thoughts are remarkably similar to those who want to kill him. He knows that, like them, he is “a prisoner of his own behaviour patterns whereby in reality every action was a compulsive action.” Like the serial killer, he muses about life as a process of destruction, with the only suspense being whether we will be destroyed in one sudden act or slowly.

And in the end, in this book with so many references to movies (albeit mostly those directed by Altman), one can’t help being convinced that if this isn’t a tribute of sorts to "Chinatown," then nothing is. The parallels, which I hesitate to enumerate so as not to incur spoilers, are incredible. If you have already read the book however, and you want to see how close the two works are, refresh your memory of the themes of "Chinatown" at this site. (Nesbo himself, it should be noted, states that the overriding themes of the book are loyalty, and fathers and sons. And it certainly is about those too. But perhaps on an unconscious level, he added another: I think it's hard to read this and not see "Chinatown" as well!)

Evaluation: Love, love, love Jo Nesbo. There are plenty of fun twists, turns, and red herrings that keep you glued to your seat. This is the eighth book featuring detective Harry Hole, and the fifth translated into English. In sequence, it is the most recent book, and follows the best-selling book The Snowman. I recommend following the sequence in this case, especially with respect to reading The Snowman first. Note it is also the longest of the Harry Hole novels so far, but I swear you won't care!

Jim's Thoughts:

Harry Hole is about the same size and apparent physical formidability as Lee Child’s Jack Reacher. Harry is much more realistic, however, in that unlike Reacher, Harry often comes in second in physical contretemps, and suffers appalling injuries in this book.

Nesbo is as adept as any mystery writer in carefully, but unobtrusively, planting the seeds of the dénouement early in the narration. For example, we learn in the first 50 pages that Harry can load a pistol in the dark, and we can expect that skill to come in handy later on. We also learn he has a broken jaw, but we would never anticipate that that feature might become his most important asset.

This book is more than 600 pages long, but the twists in the story line drive it forward relentlessly. In the few moments when the pace seems to slow, Nesbo keeps the reader guessing about which characters are being described, referring to them only as “he” or “she.”

This book is not just skillfully contrived and executed—it’s downright exciting! show less

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

Inspector Harry Hole is at it again, resigning that is. After the last traumatic episode his wife and stepson have left him and Hole finds his way to the opium dens of Hong Kong to wallow in self-pity and disappear from the real world.
He is dragged from the viper’s pit when two young women are found, brutally murdered with another unique method that Nesbo seems to relish in bringing to the unsuspecting public, along with a third suspected of the same murderer. Hole is Norway’s expert at catching serial killers. The news that Hole’s father is on his death-bed has more reason for him to return. He is done with police work, just ask him.
In a wild chase that leads us through the ski slopes and lakes of Norway to the outer regions of show more the Congo on Africa’s western plains Hole traces the suspect, now of several other bizarre murders as he tries to find the common link that brings all these hapless soles into the path of the killer.
When State run authorities impede his progress Hole strikes out alone, as usual, with all the skills of a modern-day Colombo, to unmask the culprit in his own style. Talking of style, for those of you that have had the pleasure of reading Nesbo’s other US published novels I started to complain to myself when I discovered a pattern in his work only to have that shattered in a matter of pages, almost like Nesbo set a trap. Don’t try and get into his or Hole’s head; he will shred you.
The Leopard is a work of pure genius, a skillfully woven mystery with enough action and gore to thrill the regular suspense lover in you. Nesbo has done it again; brilliant. show less