The New York Times Book Review - Marilyn Stasio
In The Thirst…teams of investigators are dispatched and the good citizens of Oslo are paralyzed with fear. But much of this melodrama is only a distraction from the intricate plotting that keeps the story shifting under our feet. Nesbo is a master at this narrative sleight of hand, and if you can stand the gory details and hang on during the switchback turns, the payoff is its own reward.
From the Publisher
Jo Nesbø certainly has the magic touch when it comes to psycho serial killers.... Intricate plotting keeps the story shifting under our feet. Nesbø is a master at this narrative sleight of hand, and if you can stand the gory details and hang on during the switchback turns, the payoff is its own reward.”
—The New York Times Book Review
"[Nesbø is] the reigning king of Scandinavian crime fiction ... [The Thirst is] a big-boned, Technicolor epic ... starting adagio and ending accelerando, but with the kind of close psychological character readings that distinguished his early work."
—The Guardian (London)
“It all starts with a Tinder date in a bar appropriately called Jealousy and ends with death on an ice-covered fjord. In between, The Thirst is filled with horrific murder scenes intensely detailed enough to chill the blood in your veins.... You’ll want to sink your teeth into The Thirst and not let go.”
—The Washington Post
"Fast moving ... stunning."
—The Times (London)
“Wading into dark and deranged territory ... an edgy and visceral read. [Nesbø] is a master of structure, style and no-pages wasted plotting.... In Nesbø’s consistently excellent Hole series, The Thirst may well be the pinnacle.”
—Paste Quarterly
“Jo Nesbø has ripped the throat out of the serial-killer genre. He’s exsanguinated it, soaking up every dark pleasure and wringing them out onto the page. There’s no need to ever read another one, Nesbø has so completely deconstructed the trope with a multi-dimensional novel that blurs lines among crime, psychological procedural and, yes, horror thrillers.... [Hole] survives in a literary landscape dreamt up by Stephen King or Edgar Allen Poe.... Brilliant ... Nesbø shows his true mastery ... Nesbø’s plots are evocative of James Ellroy and Lee Child with crime layered upon crime.”
—Arizona Republic
“Exceptional ... Nesbø depicts a heartbreakingly conflicted Harry, who both wants to forget the horrors he’s trying to prevent and knows he has to remember them in all their grim detail.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"A gripping, way-scary crime novel.... This one will keep readers awake deep into the night."
—Bill Ott, Booklist (starred review)
“Explosive ... twists within twists within twists ... yet more evidence of why Scandinavian crime writers continue to dominate international bestseller lists.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“[The Thirst] features thoroughly developed characters, an intricate plot, and suspenseful twists, all hallmarks of a master storyteller.”
—Library Journal (starred review)
Praise for the work of Jo Nesbø:
“Nesbø writes like an angel. As in Lucifer.”
—The Philadelphia Inquirer
“Nesbø explores the darkest criminal minds with grim delight and puts his killers where you least expect to find them.... His novels are maddeningly addictive.”
—Vanity Fair
“Jo Nesbø is my new favorite thriller writer and Harry Hole is my new hero.”
—Michael Connelly
“Nesbø ... is a giant of the Scandinavian mystery.”
—The Boston Globe
“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 review)
“Nesbø’s books have a serious, socially significant heft, as well as a confident (even cocky) narrative stride that is unmatched. These aren’t mere investigatory trifles to be enjoyed and forgotten; their unnerving horrors linger.”
—Richmond Times-Dispatch
“In the crowded field of Scandinavian crime fiction, Nesbø’s books stand out.... Nesbø likes to rip plots up ... to play with the conventions of his genre.”
—The New Yorker
“Harry Hole is fast becoming one of the planet’s favorite detectives. And his demons are almost as legendary as his observational and analytical skills.”
—The Mirror (UK)
“[Nesbø is] the writer most likely to take the ice-cold crown in the critically acclaimed—and now bestselling—category of Nordic noir.”
—Los Angeles Times
Kirkus Reviews
2017-04-02
Retired Inspector Harry Hole, who thinks he's safe from his demons as an underpaid lecturer in Oslo's Police College, gets blackmailed into returning to the Crime Squad Unit, with predictably explosive results.Do vampires exist? Maybe not, but vampirists, in academic expert Hallstein Smith's suitably pedantic distinction, certainly do, and one of them is at work in Oslo. After meeting Elise Hermansen, an attorney specializing in rape cases, on Tinder, he's evidently bitten her to death with a formidable set of iron teeth and drunk her blood. Given the remarkable absence of useful forensic evidence and the tenuous connection between the killer and his victim, one-eyed Police Chief Mikael Bellman, eager to burnish his crime-fighting credentials in support of his nomination as Minister of Justice, wants Harry Hole (Police, 2013, etc.) on the case, and he's willing to threaten legal proceedings against Police College student Oleg Fauke, who just happens to be Harry's stepson, to make it happen. Meanwhile, the killer has not been idle. Instead of letting a discreet interval elapse between his outrages, he attacks a second victim, concocts a smoothie from her blood and some lemon, and leaves a signature V on her door. More victims will follow in short order, and the case will continue to grow darker and more complex, even after Harry focuses the Crime Squad's manhunt on Valentin Gjertsen, who escaped from Ila Prison four years ago. In fact, Nesbø, borrowing a page from Jeffery Deaver, piles on so many twists within twists within twists that even the most conscientious readers may end up puzzled about every circumstance of the killings except the pervasive and powerfully evoked evil behind them. Middling for this distinguished series: yet more evidence of why Scandinavian crime writers continue to dominate international bestseller lists.
