Quick Book Reviews Blog

The Hunt for Lonely Hearts with Jo Nesbo The idea of seeking out complete strangers to date through various mediums certainly isn't anything new. There are lonely hearts advertisements, dating clubs, a whole array of websites dedicated to specific demographics, and more recently phone applications. Upon hearing those words you're most likely thinking of the one everyone has been using lately: Tinder .

With The Son Jo Nesbo delivers an entirely new standalone novel, though in some ways, it does run in the same vein as the Harry Hole novels. In The Son , our protagonist is Sonny Lofthus, a young man who spent the last twelve years of his life in prison, serving time for the crimes of others and being supplied with unlimited heroin.

Cockroaches by Jo Nesbo, despite being published very recently, is advertised as actually being the second novel in the series, speaking in terms of the order in which events occur. I was worried that this sudden jump back in time would work against Nesbo and throw some chaos into his timeline. However, to my surprise and relief this book felt more like an episode isolated from the rest of Nesbo’s adventures, giving this book the ability to stand on its own, even if Harry Hole hadn't become a renowned name in criminal literature.

Jo Nesbo’s The Leopard is another novel in the Harry Hole series, this time focusing on our beloved protagonist as he tries to escape the demons from his past by retreating to Hong Kong, otherwise known as “as far away as possible”. However, things don’t go Hole’s way as Oslo is need of him once again; a new and rather deranged psychopath killed two young women, drowning them in their own blood.

It seems that there is no stopping Jo Nesbo, who has penned one Harry Hole after the next, encountering great success in the process of bringing to life one of modern literature’s most recognizable detectives. Phantom is yet another chapter in Harry Hole’s legacy, this time around being centered on the death of Gusto, a local junkie, and perhaps more importantly, the man who was accused of the murder: Oleg, a boy Harry helped to raise a while ago.

Christmas is on the horizon, and inspector Harry Hole is a bit weary of all the extraordinary cases he has been on recently, meaning he is looking forward to a bit of peace and quiet, at least for once. However, it seems that the curse of all great detectives has now struck him too: rest is the last thing he will get.

In the very recent past Jo Nesbo has established himself as a very interesting mystery writer, especially with his penning of numerous Harry Hole novels. He has brought us one solid murder thriller after the next, and with The Snowman he makes no exception. Being another Harry Hole novel, we now follow our beloved hero as he looks into a rather strange disappearance.

In Police by Jo Nesbo we once again see the return of our beloved and charismatic hero, Harry Hole of the Oslo Crime Squad. This time around, the action takes place in Hole’s home, Oslo, and he finds himself face to face with one of the most dangerous enemies he could ever fathom: a serial killer who targets police officers.

Though the world of literature certainly is filled to the brim with countless thrillers and murder mysteries, I saw new additions are always welcome, if of course, they can bring a solid experience to the reader, if not something new to the genre itself. It seems that a certain number of people were a bit dubious when Jo Nesbo, author of The Headhunters , decided to create his own detective series starring Oslo Crime Squad investigator, Harry Hole.