Jo Nesbo: Police

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Can't connect with Harry Hole
POLICE has been on my bookshelf for some time as I try to start reading a series from the beginning. Before starting this book I read and was disappointed by #1 THE BAT and #2 THE COCKROACHES. Somehow I didn't connect with the character of Harry Hole and his police procedural/crime stories. It was clear that these books had been translated last because they weren't as good as later books so I eventually started to read POLICE hoping that I would enjoy #10 more than the earlier books.

Unfortunately that was not to be. The book never grabbed my attention and the many Norwegian names, places and terms that weren't translated mystified me and diverted my reading. The plot was obtuse, probably made more obtuse by translation, and I waited and waited till past one third of the book for Harry Hole, now retired from the police force, to come to the rescue of his former colleagues. Along the way Hole had to contend with sexual misconduct issues with one of his students that distracted me from an already twisted plot.

The result was that I gave up after reading just over half of the book. This is not something I do lightly and having read around 170 books in the last year I have only done this twice in the last 12 months. I am consoled that another top reviewer who I respect came to the same conclusion and didn't finish the book.

POLICE has been given glowing and enthusiastic reviews by HH fans worldwide so I am stunned that I see the book so differently to others. I recently read and really enjoyed (5 stars) Nesbo's recent standalone book THE SON which is not connected to the HH series. I am still puzzled to my reaction to POLICE but I did make several attempts to connect with the book. My reaction is bizarre but this is an honest review of the book.

My thanks to Net Galley and the publisher for providing a copy of the book for review.

Jo Nesbo: The Son

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A stunning new standalone thriller by Jo Nesbo
Most people will know Jo Nesbo's books through his very popular Harry Hole series. This time Nesbo has written a standalone thriller "The Son" (Sonnen in Norwegian) which IMHO equals if not surpasses his best Harry Hole thrillers. It is a pretty long and complex read and some of the violent parts may not be to everyone's taste.

Sonny Lofthus idolised his father, Ab, who was a police officer. At an impressionable age Sonny is faced with the apparent suicide of his father after admitting charges of corruption. His mother turns to alcohol and takes an overdose of pills. Left alone Sonny goes off the rails and becomes a drug addict. At the age of eighteen he confesses to murders he didn't commit in return for a promise from gangsters of a constant supply of drugs while he is in prison.

During the 18 years he has been in prison, despite his addiction, Sonny has become a charismatic and calm figure who other prisoners come to for absolution of their sins. One day a prisoner with terminal cancer makes a confession admitting that Sonny's father was murdered. This triggers off a major change in Sonny so that he can take vengeance on all those who had a hand in his father's murder. His main problem is that he is in prison, is a drug addict and has never lived outside as an adult.

While the main storyline is about Sonny it is also closely connected with the life of Chief Inspector Simon Kefas, who was a close friend of Ab Loftus. After Ab's death Simon's potentially brilliant career investigating fraud and corruption came to an end because of his addiction to gambling. Simon is now a reformed man and a dedicated leader of the homicide squad. On the home front his wife is rapidly losing her eyesight and Simon will do anything to save it. Along with a new female partner Simon investigates the death of a prison chaplain which drags him into looking at a range of crimes that eventually impact on Sonny's search for vengeance.

This is not a short read or sometimes a very comfortable read. At times it is extremely violent, gritty and noir. While there are corrupt gangsters and officials, drugs and multiple murders there are also characters that you can really care about. Sonny is an enigmatic character, at times innocent, loving, kind and compassionate and at other times violent and dangerous.

Nesbo has written a thriller with lots of twists and turns to keep you on the edge of your seat (actually I went back and revisited parts of the book to be able to really appreciate the writer's skills). He is able to turn on all kinds of emotions - but it is the killing spree that is the engine that really revs the story along. Despite that there is one aspect of the dramatic ending gives some hope for the future.

This book demonstrates Jo Nesbo's talents at writing top class thrillers. This will undoubtedly be a top candidate for one of the best thrillers I have read in 2014.

My thanks to The Reading Room and the publisher for an Advanced Reading Copy of this book for an honest review.

Jo Nesbo: The Bat

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Disappointed again with an early Harry Hole thriller
A couple of weeks ago I read "Cockroaches" the second Harry Hole crime thriller and was disappointed. At the time I said that because all the later books in the series have been translated from Norwegian before Cockroaches there was probably a clue that this was not one of his better books. "The Bat" is the first in the series and was translated ahead of Cockroaches so I assumed it would be better - unfortunately I was wrong.

"The Bat" is set in my old hometown of Sydney. It was a bit like a tourist book taking in the best and worst of Sydney, plus a lesson about indigenous Australia from the local investigator. The main thing I learnt was that Australians called him Harry Holy which mystified me until I discovered that this is almost similar to the correct Norwegian pronunciation that sounds like Hula or Who-la. I guess that is why the translator decided to use the anglicised name of Hole.

I always prefer to start at the beginning of a series to keep track of character development and past historys. In this case I was wrong and I probably should have seen another clue and started with more popular books later in the series. I have read many better thrillers by Indie authors.

Others tell me that the later books in the series are much better. I do plan to read them but after this book it won't be a high priority.

Jo Nesbo: Cockroaches

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A disappointing introduction to Harry Hole 
I haven't read any of Jo Nesbo's detective novels in the Harry Hole series so was keen to read this one because it is #2 in the series and I always try to read a series in order if I can. All of the later books in the series have been translated from Norwegian ahead of this book so there was probably a clue that this was not one of his better books.

Harry Hole is a complex but flawed character, a skilled detective and investigator who thinks outside the box but personally a very troubled individual who hits the bottle hard when he is not working.

The Norwegian Ambassador to Thailand, Atle Molnes, is found stabbed with an ancient oriental knife in a seedy Motel, come brothel on the outskirts of Bangkok. Molnes has been a senior Christian Democratic politician who was given the posting by his close political friend who had recently become Prime Minister. An urgent meeting between influential people in the Prime Minister's Department, Foreign Affairs and the Crime Squad quickly agree that the matter must be investigated quickly without undue public attention. They decide to send one investigator to help the local police with their investigations. Harry Hole is their unanimous selection based on his recent performance in solving a case in Sydney.

After quickly sobering up, Hole flies to Bangkok to meet his local counterparts. Nesbo does a great job in describing conditions is Bangkok, the heat, traffic, noise, bars etc., the life of an ex-pat and the diplomatic community, and the way the local police operate.

Hole quickly gets to know the Embassy staff, the Ambassador's wife, Hilde, and her teenage daughter and several key Norwegian ex-patriots in Bangkok. He soon discovers that Hilde, a borderline alcoholic, had started an affair with Jens Brekke, a rich financial trader, within days of her arrival in Bangkok. He also discovers the seedy side of Bangkok, with its sex and drug trade and links to pedofilia, all of which have some impact on the case.

The book was well written and the investigations were well documented and I could easily become a fan of Harry Hole (though I did have some difficulty following Norwegian names and places). The first half of the book was fine but later on I did have trouble with complexity and unbelievability of the plot line which left me wondering if I would read later books in the series. As I said at the beginning there is probably a clue that 9 out of 10 books in the series were translated earlier that it was not one of the better books in the series. Will I read more Harry Hole books? Probably - I have a copy of "Police", the latest in the series which I have been meaning to read for some time.