Nemesis (Harry Hole) [Paperback]

Extra Information: The first two books for this Harry Hole series The Bat Man and The Cockroaches have not been produced for translation at this time. If you were to start this series my recommendation would be from third book The Redbreast. The series then follows through in order Nemesis, The Devil's Star, The Redeemer which will then bring everyone up to date for the release of The Snowman March 2010.

Review - Nemesis (Harry Hole, Fourth Book)

Nemesis is a suspenseful, tightly complex twisted plot, full of illusion, nothing is as it seems. Jo Nesbø once again captivates us from the opening chapter with crystal clear visuals, letting our imagination take pictures of everything happening second by second. Were all standing in a bank queue; a robber walks in and quickly controls the area. He directly stands before a female bank cashier she's given twenty five seconds for him to receive his money, when he doesn't get the cash on time; six seconds too late, she's executed at point blank range, the robber escapes leaving no forensic evidence. Harry Hole is assigned to the case, all he has as a lead is grainy CCTV footage, a playback of the crime in slow motion, what he needs is a fatal mistake, just one discrepancy, until then the robber continues his spree of evil across Oslo.

Meanwhile Harry's girlfriend is in Moscow fighting for custody of her son. An old flame of Harry's gets in touch, they decide to meet up. The first part of the evening remains clear but as the night continues things become blurry with a complete touch of memory loss, how did he make it home? A phone call from a colleague brings nothing but more bad news, his ex has been found in her bed its an apparent suicide. Harry sets about to cover tracks while trying to unravel that fateful evening but as he starts to receive strange e-mails, he realizes someone wants to play a deadlier game!

Nemesis spirit of divine retribution. Jo Nesbø gives us a real brain teasing puzzle that's thrilling and gripping, just when you thought you had it; the plot twists and turns and takes us in many direction with art of trickery, manipulation. This book comes with all things dark, shady characters, crooked policeman, dirty family secrets and sibling rivalry, scars run deep, it's a marvelous story of betrayal and revenge.

Love this author work his very descriptive always changing the view, different reflections and it also comes with brilliant characterization, clear insight, observation and mannerism of people. Harry Hole is a compelling character to read, If you're reading about Harry for the first time, expect a loner, an alcoholic full of cynicism, who tends not to fit in with the office crowd but that's what he prefers, rubbing just about anybody up the wrong way, but he remains likeable. It's that touch of humour that Jo Nesbø adds to his characters and chapters (titles) which gives the novels an edge that rolls so easily into these thrillers, it translates into an English dry sense of humour and flows nicely into all the stories intertwining.

For anyone starting this series I would always recommend from The Redbreast and then following the series through with this book; Nemesis, The Devil's Star and finally The Redeemer. I read all books as they were published out of order which caused no problems either; but to get the full feel of the characters who come and go and references to other story lines it always best to take it from the top.

With added news reports from the Afghanistan War giving us a sense of time making this novel a modern day contemporary thriller another hugely enjoyable read to this series. Highly Recommended

Also adding here a thank you to Don Bartlett for the clear translation in the series.

Andrea Bowhill

I previously read both 'The Redbreast' and 'The Snowman' which I both enjoyed. However, I felt that Nemesis fell short of these other two which were both good. In this novel there are two main plot threads. The first involves a serial bankrobber and the second involves the apparent murder of one of Inspector Hole's former girlfriends. These are tenously linked by the character of Raskol, a Romany and career criminal, who is related to the dead woman and has detailed inside knowledge of the world of the armed criminal. There is also the ongoing thread of rogue detective Tom Waaler and Harry Hole's continuing search to bring the killer of Hole's former colleague to justice, a thread which was started in 'The Redbreast'. The major reason is that I thought this volume didn't reach the standard of the other two is that for me the plotting and characters' motivations here were rather unbelievable resulting in what I perceived as plot flaws. Unfortunately it is difficult to elaborate without plot spoilers. Anyway, I find the character of Harry Hole, the Rebus of Oslo, and his continuing rivalry with Waaler and Iversson interesting enough to carry on and read 'The Devil's Star'. Incidently, as others have noted, the series has been issued out of sequence in English translation. As I understand it 'The Redbreast' was the first, 'Nemesis' the second and 'Devil's Star' the third, although they haven't been published in this order in the UK. Ordinarily this may not matter, but it does here because the Waaler story line provides a continuous thread and therefore they really need to be tackled in the order they were written. This seems a puzzling publishing decision.

Following on from 'Redbreast', Nemesis gives us a mystery involving old girlfriends; serial bank robbers; jailed gypsies and Norwegian cops.

By far the most interesting aspect of this one is the exceptionally large fusiform gyrus of Beate Lonn. Tremendous character.

Anyway, others have done the critiques much better than me, so dispel your fears about the bad reviews, launch into this and enjoy it.