★ 04/10/2017
Bestseller Nesbø’s exceptional 11th Harry Hole novel (after 2013’s Police) finds the alcoholic, demon-ridden, occasionally suicidal Oslo police detective in better shape than usual. Harry is “currently a sober lecturer at Police College.” In the past, he often woke up full of angst; now he’s consistently waking up feeling happy. As for his marriage to his great love, Rakel, “If he could have, he would have been more than happy to copy and paste the three years that had passed since the wedding and relive those days over and over again.” Of course, this relatively blissful state can’t last. Harry soon joins the hunt for a serial killer, whose MO—cutting the throats of his victims in vampire fashion—is similar to that of the one killer who escaped him and still invades his dreams. Meanwhile, Rakel slips into a mysterious coma. 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. Author tour. 100,000-copy announced first printing. Agent: Niclas Salomonsson, Salomonsson Agency (Sweden). (May)
★ 05/01/2017
Oslo detective Harry Hole has two loves: alcohol and murder. Both have been somewhat controlled since he was transferred to the faculty of the police college. When a young lawyer is killed in her locked apartment by someone wearing iron teeth that tore her throat open, the press and populace are horrified. The ambitious police chief, with political prospects, blackmails Harry into returning to the murder squad. Several more bloody homicides make it clear there is a vampirist at work, but Harry manages to identify and kill him two-thirds of the way through this tale. Unfortunately, it is clear someone had been aiding and controlling the killer and might just replace him with another to taunt Harry "to come out and play." Harry's demons drive his private and professional life, but his unorthodox methods do get results. This 11th entry (after Police) in NesbØ's Scandinoir series features thoroughly developed characters, an intricate plot, and suspenseful twists, all hallmarks of a master storyteller. VERDICT With the film adaptation of NesbØ's The Snowman, starring Michael Fassbender as the iconic Norwegian detective, scheduled for release this October, reader interest is bound to grow. [See Prepub —Roland Person, formerly with Southern Illinois Univ. Lib., Carbondale
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.
Praise for The Thirst:
“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.”
—Marilyn Stasio, 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."
—Barry Forshaw, 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.”
—Jonathan Elderfield, The Washington Post
"Fast moving . . . stunning."
—Joan Smith, 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.”
—Eric Swedlund, 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.”
—Robert Anglen, 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.”
—Roland Person, 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
