The Thirst

Starred review from April 10, 2017
Bestseller Nesbø’s exceptional 11th Harry Hole novel (after 2013’s Police) finds the alcoholic, demon-ridden, occasionally suicidal Oslo police detective in better shape than usual. Harry is “currently a sober lecturer at Police College.” In the past, he often woke up full of angst; now he’s consistently waking up feeling happy. As for his marriage to his great love, Rakel, “If he could have, he would have been more than happy to copy and paste the three years that had passed since the wedding and relive those days over and over again.” Of course, this relatively blissful state can’t last. Harry soon joins the hunt for a serial killer, whose MO—cutting the throats of his victims in vampire fashion—is similar to that of the one killer who escaped him and still invades his dreams. Meanwhile, Rakel slips into a mysterious coma. Nesbø depicts a heartbreakingly conflicted Harry, who both wants to forget the horrors he’s trying to prevent and knows he has to remember them in all their grim detail. Author tour. 100,000-copy announced first printing. Agent: Niclas Salomonsson, Salomonsson Agency (Sweden).

April 15, 2017
Retired Inspector Harry Hole, who thinks he's safe from his demons as an underpaid lecturer in Oslo's Police College, gets blackmailed into returning to the Crime Squad Unit, with predictably explosive results.Do vampires exist? Maybe not, but vampirists, in academic expert Hallstein Smith's suitably pedantic distinction, certainly do, and one of them is at work in Oslo. After meeting Elise Hermansen, an attorney specializing in rape cases, on Tinder, he's evidently bitten her to death with a formidable set of iron teeth and drunk her blood. Given the remarkable absence of useful forensic evidence and the tenuous connection between the killer and his victim, one-eyed Police Chief Mikael Bellman, eager to burnish his crime-fighting credentials in support of his nomination as Minister of Justice, wants Harry Hole (Police, 2013, etc.) on the case, and he's willing to threaten legal proceedings against Police College student Oleg Fauke, who just happens to be Harry's stepson, to make it happen. Meanwhile, the killer has not been idle. Instead of letting a discreet interval elapse between his outrages, he attacks a second victim, concocts a smoothie from her blood and some lemon, and leaves a signature V on her door. More victims will follow in short order, and the case will continue to grow darker and more complex, even after Harry focuses the Crime Squad's manhunt on Valentin Gjertsen, who escaped from Ila Prison four years ago. In fact, Nesbo, borrowing a page from Jeffery Deaver, piles on so many twists within twists within twists that even the most conscientious readers may end up puzzled about every circumstance of the killings except the pervasive and powerfully evoked evil behind them. Middling for this distinguished series: yet more evidence of why Scandinavian crime writers continue to dominate international bestseller lists.

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Starred review from May 1, 2017
Somehow it had to happen: Harry Hole up against a vampire. Don't panic. Nesb's internationally best-selling crime-fiction series, while often intensely horrific, has always remained unfailingly realistic, and so it is here, in this eleventh installment. Not a genre mash-up, then, but a gripping, way-scary crime novel in which former Oslo police detective Hole, now teaching at Norway's police college, is called back to active duty to track down a vampirist, that is, a person who craves blood and exhibits behavior similar to that expected of a vampire. Harry has battled some cunningly evil serial killers in the past, but this is the first to employ a specially designed set of black dentures that make it possible to kill with a perfectly placed vampiric bite. Different, yes, but there's something about this killer, who targets victims on Tinder, that reminds Harry of his nemesis, the one who got away. Could it be? As in previous Hole novels, Nesb moves his narration around a bit, putting us into the nightmarish mind of the killer without revealing his or her identity. And, of course, this being a novel about the most demon-wracked hero in crime fiction, Harry has troubles of his own, including a mysterious disease that has felled his wife, Rakel, and, yes, another tussle with Harry's longtime sparring partner, Jim Beam. In the end, it's all about thirstthe vampirist's for blood, of course, but also Harry's for booze and for the thrill of the chase. Vampires don't exist, we all know that, but thirst is very real indeed, bringing together hunter and hunted. This one will keep readers awake deep into the night.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)

January 1, 2017

Back in the swing after 2014's Police, tough Oslo detective Harry Hole tracks a serial killer targeting Tinder daters. Interestingly, the killer's MO matches that of Harry's archenemy. With a 100,000 first printing.

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from May 1, 2017

Oslo detective Harry Hole has two loves: alcohol and murder. Both have been somewhat controlled since he was transferred to the faculty of the police college. When a young lawyer is killed in her locked apartment by someone wearing iron teeth that tore her throat open, the press and populace are horrified. The ambitious police chief, with political prospects, blackmails Harry into returning to the murder squad. Several more bloody homicides make it clear there is a vampirist at work, but Harry manages to identify and kill him two-thirds of the way through this tale. Unfortunately, it is clear someone had been aiding and controlling the killer and might just replace him with another to taunt Harry "to come out and play." Harry's demons drive his private and professional life, but his unorthodox methods do get results. This 11th entry (after Police) in NesbØ's Scandinoir series features thoroughly developed characters, an intricate plot, and suspenseful twists, all hallmarks of a master storyteller. VERDICT With the film adaptation of NesbØ's The Snowman, starring Michael Fassbender as the iconic Norwegian detective, scheduled for release this October, reader interest is bound to grow. [See Prepub --Roland Person, formerly with Southern Illinois Univ. Lib., Carbondale

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2017

Oslo detective Harry Hole has two loves: alcohol and murder. Both have been somewhat controlled since he was transferred to the faculty of the police college. When a young lawyer is killed in her locked apartment by someone wearing iron teeth that tore her throat open, the press and populace are horrified. The ambitious police chief, with political prospects, blackmails Harry into returning to the murder squad. Several more bloody homicides make it clear there is a vampirist at work, but Harry manages to identify and kill him two-thirds of the way through this tale. Unfortunately, it is clear someone had been aiding and controlling the killer and might just replace him with another to taunt Harry "to come out and play." Harry's demons drive his private and professional life, but his unorthodox methods do get results. This 11th entry (after Police) in NesbØ's Scandinoir series features thoroughly developed characters, an intricate plot, and suspenseful twists, all hallmarks of a master storyteller. VERDICT With the film adaptation of NesbØ's The Snowman, starring Michael Fassbender as the iconic Norwegian detective, scheduled for release this October, reader interest is bound to grow. [See Prepub --Roland Person, formerly with Southern Illinois Univ. Lib., Carbondale

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 5, 2017
Actor Lee delivers an excellent, nuanced performance in this audio edition of the latest installment of Nesbø’s Harry Hole series. As the book opens, former detective Hole is an instructor at a police college in Oslo, but he’s quickly drawn in to the hunt for a serial killer who may be a figure from his past. In this, Hole’s 11th outing, Nesbø again keeps the prose lean and the pace taut. Lee gives a distinctive voice and accent to each of the novel’s many characters, yet even while successfully differentiating this large ensemble, he manages to conceal the identity of a villain whose voice is heard midway through the novel. And when that same villain’s nose is broken later in the book, he skillfully adds a subtle but discernible nasal twinge. As Hole and his ragtag team of investigators close in on their target, the veteran voice actor ratchets up the tension. Lee’s suave English brogue is a perfect match for the gritty material and the many Briticisms of the translation. A Knopf hardcover.