A fantastically gripping thriller from the best-selling author of The Snowman.
Christmas shoppers stop to hear a Salvation Army concert on a crowded Oslo street. A gunshot cuts through the music and the bitter cold: one of the singers falls dead, shot in the head at point-blank range. Harry Hole—the Oslo Police Department’s best investigator and worst civil servant—has little to work with: no suspect, no weapon, and no motive. But Harry’s troubles will multiply. As the search closes in, the killer becomes increasingly desperate, and Harry’s chase takes him to the most forbidden corners of the former Yugoslavia.
Yet it’s when he returns to Oslo that he encounters true darkness: among the homeless junkies and Salvationists, eagerly awaiting a savior to deliver them from misery—whether he brings new life or immediate death.
With its shrewdly vertiginous narrative, acid-etched characters, and white-hot pace, The Redeemer is resounding proof of Jo Nesbø’s standing as one of the best crime writers of our time.
From the Hardcover edition.
“The Redeemer* rocks! Jo Nesbø is my new favorite thriller writer and Harry Hole my new hero. This book had my pulse in the red zone from start to finish.” — Michael Connelly“The Redeemer is Nesbø’s fourth novel and it proves to be as brilliant as his other three. It provides a grimly realistic portrait of the Norwegian capital — druggies shooting up in public; refugees being exploited in private — as well as an engrossing mystery, full of twists. . . . The Croatian assassin is a fascinating character — a former war hero with a truly fatal gay charm — who has the advantage of ‘hyperelasticity,’ a face so mobile no one can remember it. Nesbø’s work is full of such idiosyncratic detail and it is to be hoped that he won't let the world-weary Hole retire or get fired any time soon.”— Evening Standard (UK)“The killer’s boyhood in the war-torn Balkans gives added depth to a complex story, impossible to second-guess, which proves that greed, lust and a desire for revenge lurk within the saintliest of folk”.— Daily Telegraph*
“Hole in one. . . . Jo Nesbø has done it again. This autumn’s Harry Hole crime novel is conceived on a large scale and masterfully carried out. . . . One of Norwegian literature’s most outstanding storytellers just happens to be named Jo Nesbø.”— Verdens Gang (Norway)
“Right on the mark. . . .Jo Nesbø draws his bow, takes aim and hits a bull’s eye. He has the language, he has the suspense — and he has Harry Hole. . . . a storyteller who doesn’t give the reader a moment’ s breathing room, it’s full-bore 464 pages to the end. . . . In case you haven’t already been saved by Jo Nesbø, it’s high time you were.”— Bergensavisen (Norway)
"A tour de force. Nesbø has a plot here that is so tightly constructed and compelling that it's impossible to put the book down. This is a serial-killer story, and one with a punch."— Margaret Cannon, The Globe and Mail"Nesbø has been gradually climbing up the competitive league of Nordic crime writers. With The Redeemer he's touching the summit, and his hero, the stubborn, insubordinate Oslo detective Harry Hole, has become my favourite copper from those parts. . . . Terrific shocks, tension and atmosphere."— The Times
The Redeemer rocks! Jo Nesbo is my new favorite thriller writer and Harry Hole my new hero. This book had my pulse in the red zone from start to finish Interesting and exciting...Hole and his author provide unusually good reading Literary Review Jo Nesbo is no ordinary writer Sunday Telegraph publication of a new Nesbo is a cause for celebration...deserves to be considered as one of the very best crime novels of the year www.bookgeeks.co.uk Even when you're positive that the mystery is entirely done and dusted, it invariably turns out that the pragmatic Detective Harry Hole has managed to stay three steps ahead and there's more to uncover. Time Out The world is finally catching on to the dark delights of Scandinavian crime fiction, and Norwegian Jo Nesbo is up there at the head of the pack. This is chilling, spectacular stuff, and anyone looking for serious, and seriously compelling crime writing need look no further Nesbo's fourth novel [and it] proves to be as brilliant as his other three...grimly realistic...an engrossing mystery The Scotsman
A man walks into an Oslo bank, puts a gun to a cashier's head, and tells her to count to twenty-five. When he doesn't get his money fast enough, he pulls the trigger. The young woman dies—and two million Norwegian kroner disappear without a trace.
After a drunken evening with former girlfriend Anna Bethsen, Police Detective Harry Hole wakes up at home with a headache, no cell phone, and no memory of the past twelve hours. The same day, Anna is found shot dead in her bedroom, making Hole a prime suspect in the investigation led by his hated adversary, Tom Waaler. Meanwhile, the bank robberies continue with unparalleled savagery, sending rogue detective Hole from the streets of Oslo to steaming Brazil in a race to close two cases and clear his name. But Waaler isn't finished with his longtime nemesis quite yet.
Starred Review. When a bank teller is shot during a holdup at the start of Norwegian bestseller Nesbø's beautifully executed heist drama, Oslo Insp. Harry Hole investigates, along with Beate Lønn, a young detective with the ability to remember every face she's ever seen. Meanwhile, Harry receives a call from Anna Bethsen, a woman he hasn't seen in years. After he meets Anna, recovering alcoholic Harry awakens the next morning with a hangover and the news that Anna is dead, apparently by her own hand. While Harry quietly looks into Anna's death, he and Beate uncover ties in their bank robbery case to one of Norway's most notorious bank robbers, who's currently in prison. The deeper Harry digs, the clearer it becomes that Anna's death is linked to the robbery. Expertly weaving plot lines from Hole's last outing to feature the inspector, The Redbreast (2007), Nesbø delivers a lush crime saga that will leave U.S. readers clamoring for the next installment. (Jan.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Starred Review When Norwegian Jo Nesbo’s Redbreast landed on these shores in 2007, the acclaim was universal. Now Nesbo returns with another novel that is every bit the multitextured, complexly plotted, psychologically rich thriller that made Redbreast such an unqualified success. We pick up the life of Oslo detective Harry Hole, a recovering alcoholic whose closet is stuffed with unresolved issues concerning his obsession with his job and his inability to commit to a personal life, as he awaits the return of his new lover, Rakel, from Russia, where she hopes to be awarded permanent custody of her young son. But then he accepts an invitation to meet an old girlfriend, and suddenly he is sucked into the abyss all over again. Waking the next day at home with what appears to be a world-class hangover, he bemoans having fallen off the wagon, only to realize that’s merely the tip of the iceberg: the girlfriend has been found murdered, and his rival in the Oslo police department may be behind an attempt to frame him. Does the girlfriend’s death somehow tie in with the bank robbery and murder that he and his new partner are investigating? As Hole attempts to connect the sea of dots strewn in his path, he must battle not only his adversaries but his own demons, suddenly given new life. Nesbo manages the unlikely feat of exploring the inner life of his lead character in the thorough and compelling manner one associates with, say, Ruth Rendell, while at the same time juggling multiple, interlocking plot strands as dexterously as David Hewson. No doubt about it: Nesbo belongs on every crime-fiction fan’s A-list. --Bill Ott
“An elegant and complex thriller….Harrowingly beautiful.”—New York Times Book Review
“A hugely impressive achievement—ambitious in scope, and skilled in execution.”—Los Angeles Times
“The Redbreast certainly ranks with the best of current American crime fiction.”—Washington Post
No disrespect meant to Henning Mankell and Stieg Larsson, but Jo Nesbø, the New York Times bestselling author of The Snowman, is the most exciting Scandinavian thriller writer in the crime fiction business. The Redbreast is a fabulous introduction to Nesbø’s tough-as-nails series protagonist, Oslo police detective Harry Hole. A brilliant and epic novel, breathtaking in its scope and design—winner of The Glass Key for best Nordic crime novel and selected as the best Norwegian crime novel ever written by members of Norway’s book clubs—The Redbreast is a chilling tale of murder and betrayal that ranges from the battlefields of World War Two to the streets of modern-day Oslo. Follow Hole as he races to stop a killer and disarm a ticking time-bomb from his nation’s shadowy past. Vogue magazine says that “nobody can delve into the dark, twisted mind of a murderer better than a Scandinavian thriller writer”…and nobody does it better than Jo Nesbø! James Patterson fans should also take note.
Starred Review. Shifting effortlessly between the last days of WWII on the Eastern front and modern day Oslo, Norwegian Nesbø (The Devil's Star) spins a complex tale of murder, revenge and betrayal. A recovering alcoholic recently reassigned to the Norwegian Security Service, Insp. Harry Hole begins tracking Sverre Olsen, a vicious neo-Nazi who escaped prosecution on a technicality. But what starts as a quest to put Olsen behind bars soon explodes into a race to prevent an assassination. As Hole struggles to stay one step ahead of Olsen and his gang of skinheads, Nesbø takes the reader back to WWII, as Norwegians fighting for Hitler wage a losing battle on the Eastern front. When the two story lines finally collide, it's up to Hole to stop a man hell-bent on carrying out the deadly plan he hatched half a century ago in the trenches. Perfectly paced and painfully suspenseful, this crime novel illuminates not only Norway's alleged Nazi ties but also its present skinhead subculture. Readers will delight in Hole, a laconic hero as doggedly stubborn as Connelly's Harry Bosch, and yet with a prickly appeal all his own. (Dec.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
“Shifting effortlessly between the last days of WWII on the Eastern front and modern day Oslo, Norwegian Nesb? spins a complex tale of murder, revenge and betrayal. . . . Perfectly paced and painfully suspenseful.”
Internationally acclaimed crime writer Jo Nesbø’s antihero police investigator, Harry Hole, is back: in a bone-chilling thriller that will take Hole to the brink of insanity.
Oslo in November. The first snow of the season has fallen. A boy named Jonas wakes in the night to find his mother gone. Out his window, in the cold moonlight, he sees the snowman that inexplicably appeared in the yard earlier in the day. Around its neck is his mother’s pink scarf.
Hole suspects a link between a menacing letter he’s received and the disappearance of Jonas’s mother—and of perhaps a dozen other women, all of whom went missing on the day of a first snowfall. As his investigation deepens, something else emerges: he is becoming a pawn in an increasingly terrifying game whose rules are devised—and constantly revised—by the killer.
Fiercely suspenseful, its characters brilliantly realized, its atmosphere permeated with evil, The Snowman is the electrifying work of one of the best crime writers of our time.
Amazon Best Books of the Month, May 2011: The Snowman, Norwegian author Jo Nesbø's U.S. debut, should please even the most die-hard Stieg Larsson fans. On the first day of snow, a child wakes up to find his mother has disappeared during the night. Outside, a snowman has appeared out of nowhere, the calling card of one of the most terrifying serial killers in recent fiction. A letter from the perpetrator draws Detective Hole further and further into the case, and together with his new partner, Katrine Bratt, he hunts the Snowman through twists and turns that become increasingly personal and may drive Hole to the brink of insanity. Brilliantly crafted, this credible and dark page-turner fully fleshes out the characters, especially Hole, a hardened detective with sharp instincts and real heart. What is the link between the victims? Is the Snowman a suspicious doctor, a notorious playboy, or one of Hole's peers on the force? The police keep thinking they've caught the criminal, but Hole's astute observations may steer him around the red herrings and right into the hands of the cold-as-ice killer. --Miriam Landis
“Jo Nesbø is my new favorite thriller writer and Harry Hole my new hero.” —Michael Connelly
“With Henning Mankell having written his last Wallander novel and Stieg Larsson no longer with us, I have had to make the decision on whom to confer the title of best current Nordic writer of crime fiction . . . Jo Nesbø wins.” —Marcel Berlins, The Times (U.K.)
Two young women are found murdered in Oslo, both drowned in their own blood. Media coverage quickly reaches fever pitch: Could this be the work of a serial killer? The crime scenes offer no coherent clues, the police investigation is stalled, and the one man who might be able to help doesn’t want to be found. Traumatized by his last case, Inspector Harry Hole has lost himself in the squalor of Hong Kong’s opium dens. Yet when he is compelled, at last, to return to Norway—his father is dying—Harry’s buried instincts begin to take over. After a female MP is discovered brutally murdered, nothing can keep him from the investigation. There is little to go on: a piece of rope, a scrap of wool, a bit of gravel, an unexpected connection between the victims. And Harry will soon come to understand that he is dealing with a psychopath for whom “insanity is a vital retreat,” someone who will put him to the test—in both his professional and personal lives—as never before. Ruthlessly intelligent and suspenseful, The Leopard is Jo Nesbø’s most electrifying novel yet—absolutely gripping from first to last.
Amazon Best Books of the Month, December 2011: At the end of his previous thriller, The Snowman, Jo Nesbo's Inspector Harry Hole was a ravaged mess. At the start of The Leopard, we find Hole hiding away from the world, smoking opium in the squalor of Hong Kong's back alleys. A pretty young police officer drags him reluctantly back to Norway to pursue another serial killer, this one more twisted and vicious than the Snowman. Despite some far-fetched scenes, Hole is a damaged, soulful, and believable character. And Nesbo is proving to be a major talent, an eloquent writer who,, with the end of Steig Larsson's trilogy and the retirement of Henning Mankell's brooding detective Kurt Wallander, seems poised to become heir to the title "King of the Nordic thriller." --Neal Thompson
A Booklist Best Crime Novel of 2012"Maddeningly addictive." --Vanity Fair
“Meaty, gripping, full of tantalizing twists.” —Associated Press
“A true page-turner, and a worthy sequel to The Snowman.” —Newark Star-Ledger“The Leopard rewards you with a finale as unexpected and thought-provoking as any in recent mystery-fiction memory.” —San Francisco Chronicle “A cracking good thriller. . . . Immerse yourself and enjoy the ride.” —The Guardian (London)
“The action in The Leopard sweeps from a volcano in Africa to the remotest snow-covered mountains of Norway, but many of the novel’s best parts involve Harry’s silent struggles. . . . There’s always a twist, always a surprise, always a variation on a theme.” —The Dallas Morning News “Nesbø also deepens the central mystery at the heart of Harry’s pursuits: which is not so much the truth about himself, but rather, whether he can learn to live with that truth. He is a giant of the Scandinavian mystery.” —The Boston Globe “Outstanding. . . . Nesbø moves the action easily from Hong Kong to Norway, with side trips to the Democratic Republic of Congo, without ever losing the plot's sense of urgency.” —Publishers Weekly (starred) “This one stands up to the ante one more time. . . . Crime fiction’s most tortured and compelling hero. Alas, no armor exists strong enough to keep Harry from his demons, or the rest of us from Harry.” —Booklist (starred) “Comparisons with Stieg Larsson have been made, but Nesbø’s plots move quickly, carry more punch, and really do keep you guessing to the final page.” —Daily Mirror“The Leopard’s unflagging narrative tension, breathtaking surprises and many confrontations with half-suspected treachery . . . are superb.” —The Independent
The electrifying first appearance of Jo Nesbø’s detective, Harry Hole. Inspector Harry Hole of the Oslo Crime Squad is dispatched to Sydney to observe a murder case. Harry is free to offer assistance, but he has firm instructions to stay out of trouble. The victim is a twenty-three year old Norwegian woman who is a minor celebrity back home. Never one to sit on the sidelines, Harry befriends one of the lead detectives, and one of the witnesses, as he is drawn deeper into the case. Together, they discover that this is only the latest in a string of unsolved murders, and the pattern points toward a psychopath working his way across the country. As they circle closer and closer to the killer, Harry begins to fear that no one is safe, least of all those investigating the case.
“This is an absolute must for devotees of the riveting train wreck that is Harry Hole. . . . While the chronological confusion is disconcerting, it adds a layer of dramatic irony to the tale and enhances its tension and power.” —Booklist (starred review)“Harry is already every bit as volcanic as in his later cases. The big difference is Australia, which Nesbø, seeing it through the eyes of both a tourist and a cultural pathologist, makes you wonder how much different it is from Norway after all.” —Kirkus Reviews
"This debut effort shows Nesbø as an already confident genre craftsman, striking sparks from the familiar genre material of Harry’s fish-out-of-water experience in a foreign land and odd-couple pairing with a mismatched partner." --Publishers Weekly
Advance praise from the U.K.“Even with this first book Nesbø’s command of the idiom is completely in place—there is absolutely no sense that the writer was finding his feet and aficionados will be very pleased to slide this on to their bookshelves alongside the other Harry Hole novels.” --The Daily Express“It is fantastic to see a younger Harry, a more loquacious Harry. . . . [Nesbø is] a terrific writer who knows how to build a story, taking you slowly to the top of a rollercoaster before sending you hurtling towards a solution that you never see coming.” --Scottish Express“Nesbø is already taking on the clichés, ruthlessly tearing them apart and coming up with new riffs. . . . Most satisfyingly, we can now see the organic shape that Nesbø always intended his work to take.” --The Independent (London)
Jo Nesbø’s books have sold more than eighteen million copies worldwide, and have been translated into forty-seven languages. His Harry Hole novels include The Redbreast, Nemesis, The Devil’s Star, The Snowman, The Leopard, Phantom and The Redeemer, and he is the author of Headhunters and several children’s books. He has received the Glass Key Award for best Nordic crime novel. He is also a musician, songwriter, and economist and lives in Oslo.
Harry is on a special mission
Detective Harry Hole arrives in a steaming hot Bangkok. The Norwegian ambassador has been found dead in a seedy motel room, and Harry has been sent to investigate. It's clear that the Ambassador's family are hiding some secrets of their own, but few people are willing to talk.
He needs to solve a crime and avoid a scandal
When Harry lays hands on some incriminating CCTV footage, things only get more complicated. The man who gave him the tape goes missing, and Harry realises that failing to solve a murder case is by no means the only danger that faces the unwary.
But in an unfamiliar city, who can you trust?
Praise for Jo Nesbø
“Nesbø writes like an angel. As in Lucifer.” —The Philadelphia Inquirer “Harry Hole is fast becoming cone of the planet’s favorite detectives. And his demons are almost as legendary as his observational and analytical skills.” —The Mirror (UK)“Nesbø explores the darkest criminal minds with grim delight and puts his killer where you least expect to find them. . . . His novels are maddeningly addictive.” —Vanity Fair
Jo Nesbø’s books have been translated into forty-seven languages. He is the author of the Harry Hole series, the latest of which is Police, as well as Headhunters and several children’s books. He has received the Glass Key Award for best Nordic crime novel. He is also a musician, songwriter, and economist and lives in Oslo.
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A fantastically gripping thriller from the best-selling author of The Snowman.
Christmas shoppers stop to hear a Salvation Army concert on a crowded Oslo street. A gunshot cuts through the music and the bitter cold: one of the singers falls dead, shot in the head at point-blank range. Harry Hole—the Oslo Police Department’s best investigator and worst civil servant—has little to work with: no suspect, no weapon, and no motive. But Harry’s troubles will multiply. As the search closes in, the killer becomes increasingly desperate, and Harry’s chase takes him to the most forbidden corners of the former Yugoslavia.
Yet it’s when he returns to Oslo that he encounters true darkness: among the homeless junkies and Salvationists, eagerly awaiting a savior to deliver them from misery—whether he brings new life or immediate death.
With its shrewdly vertiginous narrative, acid-etched characters, and white-hot pace, The Redeemer is resounding proof of Jo Nesbø’s standing as one of the best crime writers of our time.
From the Hardcover edition.
Review
“The Redeemer* rocks! Jo Nesbø is my new favorite thriller writer and Harry Hole my new hero. This book had my pulse in the red zone from start to finish.”
— Michael Connelly
“The Redeemer is Nesbø’s fourth novel and it proves to be as brilliant as his other three. It provides a grimly realistic portrait of the Norwegian capital — druggies shooting up in public; refugees being exploited in private — as well as an engrossing mystery, full of twists. . . . The Croatian assassin is a fascinating character — a former war hero with a truly fatal gay charm — who has the advantage of ‘hyperelasticity,’ a face so mobile no one can remember it. Nesbø’s work is full of such idiosyncratic detail and it is to be hoped that he won't let the world-weary Hole retire or get fired any time soon.”
— Evening Standard (UK)
“The killer’s boyhood in the war-torn Balkans gives added depth to a complex story, impossible to second-guess, which proves that greed, lust and a desire for revenge lurk within the saintliest of folk”.
— Daily Telegraph*
“Hole in one. . . . Jo Nesbø has done it again. This autumn’s Harry Hole crime novel is conceived on a large scale and masterfully carried out. . . . One of Norwegian literature’s most outstanding storytellers just happens to be named Jo Nesbø.”
— Verdens Gang (Norway)
“Right on the mark. . . .Jo Nesbø draws his bow, takes aim and hits a bull’s eye. He has the language, he has the suspense — and he has Harry Hole. . . . a storyteller who doesn’t give the reader a moment’ s breathing room, it’s full-bore 464 pages to the end. . . . In case you haven’t already been saved by Jo Nesbø, it’s high time you were.”
— Bergensavisen (Norway)
"A tour de force. Nesbø has a plot here that is so tightly constructed and compelling that it's impossible to put the book down. This is a serial-killer story, and one with a punch."
— Margaret Cannon, The Globe and Mail
"Nesbø has been gradually climbing up the competitive league of Nordic crime writers. With The Redeemer he's touching the summit, and his hero, the stubborn, insubordinate Oslo detective Harry Hole, has become my favourite copper from those parts. . . . Terrific shocks, tension and atmosphere."
— The Times
Review
The Redeemer rocks! Jo Nesbo is my new favorite thriller writer and Harry Hole my new hero. This book had my pulse in the red zone from start to finish Interesting and exciting...Hole and his author provide unusually good reading Literary Review Jo Nesbo is no ordinary writer Sunday Telegraph publication of a new Nesbo is a cause for celebration...deserves to be considered as one of the very best crime novels of the year www.bookgeeks.co.uk Even when you're positive that the mystery is entirely done and dusted, it invariably turns out that the pragmatic Detective Harry Hole has managed to stay three steps ahead and there's more to uncover. Time Out The world is finally catching on to the dark delights of Scandinavian crime fiction, and Norwegian Jo Nesbo is up there at the head of the pack. This is chilling, spectacular stuff, and anyone looking for serious, and seriously compelling crime writing need look no further Nesbo's fourth novel [and it] proves to be as brilliant as his other three...grimly realistic...an engrossing mystery The Scotsman