Harry Hole returns in a dark, disturbing narrative skillfully performed by John Lee. At rock bottom in Los Angeles, Harry is drowning in alcohol, having lost everything dear to him. However, a lucrative offer beckons him back to Oslo, where as a private detective he can save the life of a woman he recently met. The case involves a sadistic serial killer. Lee effectively portrays the macabre details of the killer's grotesque acts, which range from mutilation to cannibalism. Shifting perspectives among Harry, his former police colleagues, the victims, and the disturbed killer, Lee employs accents, tone, and pacing to differentiate the many characters. While Harry's backstory is scattered throughout, newcomers might benefit from starting earlier in the series. E.Q. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine

04/03/2023

Nesbø’s 13th Harry Hole novel (after 2019’s Knife) covers familiar terrain in a too familiar way. Norwegian sleuth Hole has left the Oslo police after a tragedy and relocated, broke and despondent, to sunny California. At the start, Hole saves Lucille, an aging actor, from a powerful family’s attempts to collect the almost $1 million she owes them. It’s a temporary fix, but fortunately, a contrivance gives him a chance to help her pay her debts: Hole’s former colleagues are probing the murder of Susanne Anderson, a 26-year-old found dead in an Oslo forest. Suspicion focuses on Markus Røed, a real estate mogul, who’d slept with Anderson. Røed decides to hire his own investigator for PR purposes and contacts Hole, who agrees to investigate if he pays Lucille’s $1 million debt. The killer’s unusually gruesome method is the book’s only novelty—otherwise, Nesbø hits all the typical beats of a serial killer thriller, including a lead who seeks redemption through his work, sections presented from the perspective of the murderer, and the imperiling of a significant character. This is a shadow of the author’s best work. Agent: Niclas Salomonsson, Salomonsson. (May)

Readers are privy to the doings of a man calling himself Prim, who emerges as the creepiest villain this side of a Thomas Harris novel . . . Nesbø excels at manipulating this sort of ghoulish material. He can heighten suspense with a single word and wrong-foot the most attentive customer.”
—Wall Street Journal

“Riveting.”
—St. Louis Post-Dispatch

"Jo Nesbø is one of today's most interesting thriller writers, and Harry Hole is an all-time great character."
—Lee Child, author of the #1 New York Times best-selling Jack Reacher series

“Unassailably the reigning king of Nordic noir as well as a global crime-writing superstar . . . Nesbø is back on gruesome form.”
—Financial Times

“A battered hero, a memorably creepy villain, a series of false endings worthy of Jeffery Deaver: What’s not to love?”
—Kirkus (starred review)

“Killing Moon is not just an unbearably tense thriller but another of Nesbø’s studies in love and loneliness. At his best, as he is here, there are few greater crime writers.”
—The Times (London)

“Nesbø deploys all the key ingredients of a cracking good thriller . . . Effortless.”      
—Guardian

“Breathtaking . . . Harry Hole returns in cracking form . . .  It takes all of Hole’s ingenuity to uncover what must be the most unusual method of murder in contemporary crime fiction.”
—The Sunday Times (Ireland)

“Killing Moon is a magnificent concoction. It is beyond fantastic and is one of the greatest crime novels I have ever read. And I have read thousands.”
—Dayton Daily News         
                               
“Harry is back. Part rock star, part melancholic philosopher, he is the coolest, smartest, most complex, least orthodox crime fighter around . . . In plotting this book, Nesbø gives us a heap of misleading clues, mistaken arrests, red herrings and blind alleys. He is a master of misdirection.”
—Bookreporter

“Nesbø never releases the heartstrings through an otherwise classic dark police procedural . . . Fans of the series will find this sleuth’s grief and loss powerful and will appreciate how life forces Harry back into the work he does so well. Newcomers to Nesbø’s well-established investigations won’t struggle for context, though.”
—New York Journal of Books

Harry Hole returns in a dark, disturbing narrative skillfully performed by John Lee. At rock bottom in Los Angeles, Harry is drowning in alcohol, having lost everything dear to him. However, a lucrative offer beckons him back to Oslo, where as a private detective he can save the life of a woman he recently met. The case involves a sadistic serial killer. Lee effectively portrays the macabre details of the killer's grotesque acts, which range from mutilation to cannibalism. Shifting perspectives among Harry, his former police colleagues, the victims, and the disturbed killer, Lee employs accents, tone, and pacing to differentiate the many characters. While Harry's backstory is scattered throughout, newcomers might benefit from starting earlier in the series. E.Q. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine

★ 2023-06-21
Harry Hole is pulled back home from La-La Land to investigate a series of killings for a most unexpected reason.

Inspector Katrine Bratt, head of the Oslo Police Department’s Crime Squad, desperately wants the help of her ex-lover, a terrible cop who’s also the country’s leading authority on serial killers, when Susanne Andersen and Bertine Bertilsen, both of whom have gone missing, turn up dead and disfigured in a truly ghoulish manner. There’s no way, says her boss, Chief Supt. Bodil Melling: Harry’s already disgraced the department in so many ways that he’ll never work there again. Little do they know that Harry’s already agreed to take the case at the request of real estate mogul Markus Røed, who’s under suspicion because he played sugar daddy to both of the victims. The staggering fee Harry demands is $960,000, exactly the amount that one-time movie actress Lucille Owens owes the Esposito family, whose enforcers Harry’s just rescued her from in Los Angeles. Arriving back home, Harry promptly assembles the Aune Group, a cadre of four helpers even more disreputable than him, and sets them to work knowing that the Esposito family will close Lucille’s account in seven days. Every one of the Aune Group has something to contribute, but they can’t prevent the body count from rising. Like the old pro he is, Nesbø doles out some teasing details about the killer, who calls himself Prim, early on while withholding enough information about Prim’s modus operandi, motive, and true identity to keep the pages fluttering long past bedtime.

A battered hero, a memorably creepy villain, a series of false endings worthy of Jeffery Deaver: What’s not to love?