I finished this book last week and am just getting around to my thoughts on it; IT”S GOOD.

I read a couple of his books a couple of years ago but have put off getting back to him.

Caution: Nesbo’s writing is warts and all. His hero is Harry Hole, an alcoholic and heavy smoker who is antisocial and unpleasant to boot. But he has the gift of looking at the facts of a case and reaching the right decision, sober or not.

Hole works in Oslo, Norway, and you will find yourself sliding past all the place names unless you have a Norwegian uncle who talks to you in his native language. The translation is done in the United Kingdom, so our read has some of the English flavors.

This is story #5 from 2003. His 12th is out this year. Hole manages to get to work after a two-week drunk and is assigned a murder case because have the squad is on vacation. Eventually, a second murder is discovered, then a third. Hole ends up assisting the man he believes killed a fellow cop. In spite of his demon thirst, Hole follows the clues and struggles to prevent the fifth murder, the one that would fill in the Devil’s Cross.

In spite of his rough ways, I like Hole. He is a man who sees the world as it really is and doesn’t like it, but tries to do what he can to help. Because of that bleak life outlook, he has no one he can trust. He is a grubber Gary Cooper in High Noon.

I won’t wait so long to read another Nesbo.

Mike Lawrence