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This densely plotted story…is one of Nesbo's darkest and most disturbing…The chills are palpable in this nerve-racking thriller…Removing Harry from the action is a bold move that pays off in incisive character studies of the ensemble players who have always languished in his shadow…
01/06/2014
For roughly a third of Nesbø’s new novel, Oslo police detective Harry Hole is missing—not surprising considering he was felled by a headshot at the end of 2012’s Phantom. In his stead, associates struggle to work around venal police chief Mikael Bellman while hunting for a vicious serial killer who’s slaughtering police officers. Narrator John Lee provides the book’s characters with pitch-perfect voices. He catches forensic expert Beate Lonn’s arch smugness and sense of superiority, and Bellman’s self-satisfied purr, rich in vanity when he is in control, obsequious in the presence of power. When Harry eventually appears, more or less recovered, he’s a different man: sober, contemplative, and retired from police work. Those changes are present in Lee’s vocal interpretation, and, as Harry is eventually drawn deep into the killer’s grim game, anxiety, ire, and even a touch of fear are added. Lee is able to adapt his voice to any situation. It hardens during the book’s descriptions of particularly grotesque and disturbing murder scenes, softens for romantic moments involving Harry and his true love, Rakel. Perhaps more important, his precise diction, pacing, and emphases do wonders in presenting this particularly complex crime novel that consists of at least four separate plots that unfold simultaneously, all complete with clues, twists, turns, red herrings, and plenty of misdirection. A Knopf hardcover. (Oct.)
08/26/2013
The life of Insp. Harry Hole, who was shot in the head by his surrogate son in the finale of 2012’s Phantom, hangs in the balance for much of Nesbø’s powerful 10th novel featuring the Oslo homicide cop. Secondary players who have helped out along the way step into the spotlight: forensics expert and facial-recognition whiz Beate Lønn; the brilliant but psychologically unstable detective Katrine Bratt; Harry’s longtime friend Bjørn Holm; and the slippery new police chief, Mikael Bellman. The police force itself is at stake when it becomes apparent that the seemingly unrelated deaths of police officers are actually part of a larger pattern: each officer was slain at the site of an unsolved crime. In Nesbø’s able hands, Harry’s absence is a character unto itself, but this will only make readers more eager to learn Harry’s fate. Author tour. 150,000-copy announced first printing. Agent: Niclas Salomonsson, Salomonsson Agency (Sweden). (Oct.)
A dizzyingly taut feat of storytelling.” —The Boston Globe
"An invigorating must-read." —Newsweek
“The chills are palpable in this nerve-racking thriller.” —The New York Times Book Review
“A hugely enjoyable game of cat-and-mouse.... Nesbo manages the book’s unnervingly scary scenes so well he should consider tackling a horror novel.” —Richmond Times Dispatch
“Scandinavian crime thrillers don’t come much darker or more tense than the best-selling Harry Hole series, and this tenth outing for the Norwegian detective is the best yet.” —Sunday Mirror (UK)
“Nesbø's dark and gripping crime series featuring the Oslo detective Harry Hole [is] fascinating readers with its ever-deepening portrait, Breaking Bad–style, of a hero's gradual transition to an antihero.” —Chicago Tribune
“So dark, intense, and bone chilling that immersion in [Nesbø’s] world for an extended period is not for the sensitive.” —Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
“A multi-layered and intertwining story that makes your head spin, while delivering a masterclass in suspenseful writing.... Simply sit back and enjoy every twist and turn.” —Sunday Express (UK)
“An electrifying ride.... A master of suspense, red herrings and false trails, as well as a mesmerizing storyteller. Nesbø is in a league of his own.” —The Sydney Morning Herald
“Plot twists worthy of a möbius strip.” —Bloomberg News
“Attempts at work and sleep [are] futile until it is finished.” —The Daily Telegraph
At the close of PHANTOM, Harry Hole was shot in the head and chest. Is he alive or dead? John Lee’s coolly dispassionate narration contains the needed urgency to keep listeners engaged, since author Jo Nesbø doesn’t reveal Hole’s fate for most of the novel. Lee nicely develops the secondary members of the Oslo police force featured in this mystery. With Hole out of the picture, Harry’s longtime friend, Bjørn Holm; forensics dynamo Beate Lønn; and detective Katrine Bratt must delve into a series of brutal murders of police officers found dead at the locations of crimes they were unable to solve. Lee’s performance captures Nesbø’s every nuance, bringing out vivid details of the gruesome crime scenes and adding dimension to the ingenious plot twists. S.J.H. © AudioFile 2013, Portland, Maine
★ 2013-09-01
Having upped the ante with the previous novel in the Harry Hole series, the author goes for broke here. Arguably the most densely packed and ambitiously plotted novel in a series that has been getting darker with each volume, the tenth novel featuring Harry Hole is a companion sequel to its predecessor (Phantom, 2012). That book had left the former Oslo detective no longer a member of the police force and perhaps no longer alive. The publication of a new Hole novel removes the "spoiler alert," though for the first third of the novel, Harry exists more as a memory or an inspiration than as a character. The audacity of the author's vision here is that Hole is but one of a number of characters who might be living, might be dead, might even be some sort of ghostly spirits. There's a religious dimension to the plot twists of death and rebirth, of man playing god, both the redeemer and the avenger. The basic plot, not that there's anything basic about it, is that a series of gruesome crimes have remained unsolved for years, though DNA testing offers new possibilities. The police who investigated the original crimes and failed to solve them are lured back to the murder scenes, on the anniversaries of the murders, and are then themselves killed in an equally gruesome manner. Is the killer the same as the first, covering his tracks? Or is he "an apostle of righteousness," an agent of justice, insisting that those who failed to solve the crimes must pay for them? Is it even possible that the one stalking police is himself a member of the force, revolted at the corruption that those who read the previous novel know now extends to the top? Or is he part of that corruption? Casualties spawn new theories, as those thought dead turn out to be alive (and vice versa), and the complexities suggest that "the human brain is a four-dimensional labyrinth. Everyone's been there; no one knows the way." A surprise ending promises a fresh start for a series that had appeared to end with its previous novel.
| BN ID: | 2940171936099 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Penguin Random House |
| Publication date: | 10/15/2013 |
| Series: | Harry Hole Series , #10 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
Chapter 5
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Police"
by .
Copyright © 2013 Jo Nesbo.
Excerpted by permission of Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
In this week’s mystery roundup we get reacquainted with the delightful Gabriel Allon, lose track of the irascible Harry Hole, and follow Quinn Colson into a spider’s nest in the Deep South. The Heist, by Daniel Silva Fans of Silva will be delighted to discover that he’s done it again—each novel in his stylish Gabriel […]
