Knife

February 1, 2019

Winner of Glass Key honors for best Nordic crime fiction, Norwegian author Nesbøreturns somewhat the worse for wear. His beloved Rakel has said goodbye forever, and he is starting over with the Oslo Police but in the cold case office. He's more worried about Svein Finne, the serial rapist and murderer he put away, who will soon be out of prison. Then Harry awakens after a drunken spree to find his hands covered in blood.

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May 15, 2019
Inspector Harry Hole's 12th case is his most grueling to date. And considering his history on and off the Oslo Police (The Thirst, 2017, etc.), that's quite a claim. Back on the bottle since his wife, human rights executive Rakel Fauke, threw him out, Harry wakes up one morning with no idea how he's spent the last two days. Even before he can sober up, he's hit by a tornado: Rakel has been murdered, and Harry's colleagues want him to stay out of the case, first because he's the victim's husband, then because they can't rule him out as her killer. The preliminary evidence points to Svein Finne, whose long career of raping women and later stabbing them to death unless he's gotten them pregnant, hasn't been slowed down just because he's spent 20 years in prison and is now pushing 80. The elusive Finne, the very first killer Harry ever arrested, is driven by the need to avenge his own son's death: "For each son I lose, I shall bring f-five more into the world." Captured after Harry unforgivably uses his latest rape victim as bait, Finne blandly confesses to Rakel's murder, but the unshakable alibi he produces sends the inquiry back to square one. A series of painstaking investigations identifies first one plausible suspect, then another, each one of whom might have been designed specifically to immerse Harry more deeply in his grief. And even after each of these suspects, beginning with Finne, is cleared of complicity in Rakel's death, they continue to hover malignantly over the landscape, ready to swoop down and wreak still further havoc. Long before the final curtain, most readers will have joined Harry, shut out of the official investigation and marginalized in ever more harrowing ways, in abandoning all hope that he can either close the case or enjoy a moment of peace again. The darkest hour yet for a detective who pleads, "The only thing I can do is investigate murders. And drink"--and a remarkable example of how to grow a franchise over the hero's most vociferous objections.

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May 27, 2019
Nesbø’s intricate, inventive, but seriously overstuffed 12th Harry Hole novel picks up on the heels of 2017’s The Thirst, but now Hole is separated from his wife, Rakel, and back on Oslo’s police force, working cold cases and drinking heavily. When Svein Finne, whom Harry sent to prison 20 years earlier, is released, Finne immediately resumes his particularly twisted crime: terrorizing and raping women, hoping to impregnate them. Finne also seeks revenge on Harry, who, with his standard disregard of the law and procedure, sets out to put Finne away for good. An enormous number of characters, backstories, subplots, and themes (such as flaws in the justice system) fill this long book. At times, it feels as if there are far too many balls in the air, though the action does build to a well-orchestrated denouement. The surfeit of plot and detail will surely delight Nesbø’s fans, but may not win him many new readers. 100,000-copy announced first printing. Agent: Niclas Salomonsson, Salomonsson Agency (Sweden).

Starred review from July 1, 2019
"Who is the darkest of them all?" If there was a crime-fiction magic mirror somewhere, and one were to put this query to it, hoping to determine whose novels were the darkest in mood, in theme, and in the protagonist's soul, the answer, almost certainly, would be Jo Nesb�. No one knows darkness like Nesb�'s Harry Hole, the Oslo supercop who continually confronts demons both in the external world and?every bit as terrifying?in his own mind and heart. So it is here, in Nesb�'s latest Hole adventure. The inner demons take the first bite, sending Harry tumbling off the wagon yet again and prompting his wife, the long-suffering Rakel, to throw him out. But that's only the beginning. There's a new serial killer in town, but Harry, confined to cold cases, isn't free to track him or to make the case that this killer isn't new at all. Harry's b�te noire, Svein Finne, is out of jail (where Harry put him 10 years ago), and, in Harry's mind at least, is on the rampage once more. Yes, but bouts with booze and serial killers are old hat for Harry. So Nesb� delivers a haymaker to Harry's solar plexus that leaves him reeling as he's never reeled before. Want to know more? No, you really don't, at least not now. Focus instead on Harry doing what he does when the darkness descends: finding killers with the kind of intuitive and analytical mind you wouldn't think would still work after all that Jim Beam. But work it does in what may be Nesb�'s best storytelling yet. It's not just clever; it's diabolical, and let's be glad it is, because the corkscrewing plot provides a measure of relief from the pain on view in this uncompromisingly intense and brilliant novel.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)