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The Redbreast- Jo Nesbo
This one was good, very clever and very good.
It starts really slow and you end up wondering where it is all leading to and who will turn out to be the target and who the killer. Once it all comes together is is beautiful well paced, well thought out and well plotted. Nesbo writes very calmly and like he has all the time in the world to tell you about all these characters you meet. He knows they are all going to play their part in the final outcome and he spends some time setting them all up.
So, what is it all about? Our main character Harry Hole almost kills an America special services guy and has to be promoted out of harms way. He ends up an inspector in a section of the police that he does not particularly want to be in but tries and make the best of it. He is a recovering alcoholic (okay this is slightly cliche, I have not met too many fictional detectives that spend their evenings playing scrabble) and generally a bit of a misery guts. Yet he seems clever enough and observant, he notices the importance if the unlikely.
It all seems to start with an old rifle smuggled into the country and spirals out of control into a murder plot and a manhunt... for the wrong guy... well... actually he is the right guy but he is not who they think he is. Our killer remains obscured to the end. We know he is ill and does not have long to live. He feels a very strong urge to clean up the past to get his revenge on those who left their nation in its hour of need. He seems to do random things and kill random people but in the end it all makes sense.
There is one story told in the present time (where our murderer is killing) and then there is another woven in that deals with the past, which is where our murderer is really created. The interesting part of this second story is that it plays out during the Second World War in Norway and addresses the slightly ambiguous position of the county in the war. It deals with the fate of a group of soldiers who spend a lot of time trying to duck bullets and staying alive or thinking of defecting. This story is important to the whole atmosphere of the book and it explains to a large extent why our murderer became who he became. All is not revealed, however, until get to almost the last chapters of the book and this is the way it should be. Little clues and hints have been dropped throughout the book on who our killer is and when it all comes together you cannot wait for it to all be revealed.
Through out the book there is a lot of misdirection. There are plenty of red herrings and plenty of people set up that could be the killer for a variety of reasons and Harry navigates these waters very calmly and carefully. Most of the time it seems he is not sure if he is actually making progress. But he does get there in the end. It is all there in black and white... written up and printed out for him so if he didn't get that he would be a really bad detective. As a reader you know and find out things that no-one else in the book knows and sees. This makes you kind of superior but trust me it does not mean you see what is coming.
Of all the people that get killed I think it is the death of Harry previous partner that shocked me the most. She is such a pillar of strength for Harry and when she goes he flounders and fails. The reasons for her killing are very clearly set up but in the end nobody makes the links, Harry is too busy catching his lone gun man and it is all put down to a crime of opportunity. As he reader you know the what and how. I am sure Harry will figure it out in the end. I have a few more Nesbo ones on my shelves so I will be there with him when he does.
I have to admit that a few obvious loose ends remain in the end and that these are obviously set up so they can be dealt with in future books but Nesbo is forgiven for that. The story that he tells is good and engaging. Harry seems like a flawed but nice character and I cannot wait to see where he goes next. He even gets the girl in the end though I think he may not get to enjoy his happily ever after for too long.
Title: The Redbreast
Author: Jo Nesbo
618 pages
Vintage
ISBN nr 978-0-099-54677-1
Books to be read: 117
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