Harry Hole series, Jo Nesbo

Titles – Red Breast, The Bat, Nemesis, Devil’s star, Redeemer, The Snowman, The Leopard, Police, Cockroaches, Phantom

Author – Jo Nesbo

Publisher – Vintage Books

Genre – Thriller

Rating – Very Good

Last time I wrote on this blog was last year..... I read daughters of war and didn't get to writing the review.

Jo Nesbo, Gillian Flynn, Keigo Higashino, Jussi Adler-Olsen to name a few had set my pulse racing.

Cud'nt put down till the last page, cud'nt wait to open another book. 

The adrenalin rush these thrillers give is addictive. And this is my purgerance. To write about and get them out of my system.  

Why is human frailty so hard to not observe?   

Jo Nesbo 

Jo Nesbo is being touted as the next Stieg Larsson of the “Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” fame. As gripping as his tales are, he still has some catching up to do in the dexterity and twists in his tales. Especially at his closures, Nesbo tends to spill the beans in the 2^nd last chapter itself. He laboriously explains the entire sequence of events and leaves nothing to the reader’s imagination. Most stories have a second sub plot running in parallel. While this does confuse the investigation and the reader, one gets used to this after the first couple of reads.

Then why did I rate it “Very Good”? 

Fascinating plots, twisted insights into human behavior, thousands of motives for who dunnit and a tragic love story.

Nesbo delves into the criminal’s mind with compassion. A realm I'm personally uncomfortable with because I want to judge this person, not get into the whys and whatfors. Delving into his motives, one realizes the criminal is also human. Yes, the outcome of his actions is one which is unacceptable but one wonders whether this man/ woman deserves sympathy or punishment!

Jo Nesbo  works with certain beliefs about serial killers – that they take to this extreme form of punishment on society to feel normal about themselves. In so many ways an individual may feels isolated, humiliated, barred. But where is the tipping point?

To what extent do these societal norms contain human bestiality and where does it cause it to spill over? Should all behaviors to be considered normal? So that no fringes are caused to spill and turn into beasts? Or should such divergents be expelled and kept separate from a society that follows its norms? When we imprison our criminals we are doing just this. Formerly no one bothered to probe into the question why. Those who knew kept quiet.

So who is the criminal?

A Government which authorizes carpet bombing of an entire city or a survivor who comes into the former’s gardens and kills its civilians?

Parents who humiliate their child on discovering his/her aberrant sexual behavior or the grown up child who rapes and silences at will?

The police officer who takes law into his hands to punish criminals who would otherwise escape the law or the lawmakers who make lenient rules and give multiple chances to correct.

The world is changing. A person is no longer the inhabitant of a village or a city. We are all global citizens and expose ourselves to global trends and perspectives. 

Stage one is done. We were brave enough to open ourselves to the onslaught of different cultures, religions, philosophies, rights and wrongs ... Now are we strong enough to withstand it?