What is it about Scandinavian thriller writers? Is it just that they’ve got nothing better to do on all those cold nights than dream up more and more diabolical means to mislead readers? It’s tempting to think so.
Among the many other things he’s done in his still-young life, Jo Nesbo has written ten novels featuring the exasperating Oslo police detective Harry Hole. Inspector Hole is, not to put too fine an edge on it, a piece of work. An alcoholic, deeply anti-authoritarian, and an obsessive investigator, he has finally cashed in all his chips with the department as Police opens.
Harry Hole is now an ex-policeman, employed as a lecturer at the police academy. His nemesis, a younger detective whose corrupt involvement in the drug trade Harry has uncovered but can’t prove, has just been named Chief of Police. Now someone starts murdering police officers, and doing so at the sites of previous, unsolved murders. Harry’s old colleagues on the force become desperate as the murders continue. The pressure on Harry to come out of retirement becomes fierce.
Reviewers use words like “compelling” and “dizzying” and “relentless” to describe the tension that builds in stories like these. Despite knowing that I was being manipulated by a master storyteller, I found myself hooked. On several occasions as I read Police I looked up at the end of a chapter, only to discover that I’d read not one but three chapters and made myself late for something else. Is this addiction? Maybe it is.
Police (Harry Hole #10) by Jo Nesbo ★★★★☆
For additional reading
This is one of The outstanding Harry Hole thrillers from Jo Nesbo.
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