The Redbreast: A Novel
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Product Description
Detective Harry Hole embarrassed the force, and for his sins he’s been reassigned to mundane scrutiny tasks. But while monitoring neo-Nazi activities in Oslo, Hole is inadvertently drawn into a mystery with deep roots in Norway’s dark past—when members of the nation’s government willingly collaborated with Nazi Germany. More than sixty years later, this black mark won’t wash away, and disgraced ancient soldiers who once survived a brutal Russian winter are being murdered, one by one. Now, with only a stained and guilty conscience to guide him, an mad, alcoholic, error-prone policeman must make his way safely past the traps and mirrors of a twisted criminal mind. For a hideous conspiracy is rapidly taking shape around Hole—and Norway’s darkest hour may still be to come.
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I’ve learned my lesson: never trust a journalist. I bought this contrived, clumsy, soggy-paced work on the might of the blurbs. One gets the feeling the writer just couldn’t choose what he wanted to write about, which is why the narrative threads are such a tangle. The book, moreover, is riddled with errors (“sulfur” matches; revolver “magazines”; etc.), and an utterly absurd central plot contrivance: a “special” firearm so unlikely that one can assume the writer learned everything he knows about guns from watching TV. And he wears his PC sensibilities on his sleeve: like, presumably, the blurb writers, Nesbo seems to reflect the greatest challenge facing modern Europe is the skinhead threat. If this is the best, how terrible can the second-best Norwegian thriller writer be? Don’t buy it: you can have my copy, if you’re willing to go dumpster-diving.
Reader’s Rating: 2 / 5
The first 2/3 of this book are a pretty excellent mystery, but in the last third it turns into a run-of-the-mill thriller with all the cliches of the genre: a venal government official, a corrupt cop, about half-a-dozen murders, a cop racing through a city crashing his car into things and narrowly missing a baby carriage, coincidences galore and improbable plot twists right and left. There’s even that hoary ancient trope of bone idle thriller writers: a criminal with a split personality.
The translator rumor has it that couldn’t make up his mind whether to translate into British English or American, so he seems to have invented a weird mixture of the two.
Much of the last part of the book is the killer’s life tale. Weirdly, these passages switch randomly from past tense to present tense, sometimes in the same sentence. I don’t know if the original Norwegian was written that way or if it is the translator’s mistake.
Reader’s Rating: 2 / 5
I did not get very far into this trite book. From the first chapter I disliked it. We are taken to the scene of a possible attempt on the US President’s life but right at the fatal moment the chapter ends. Then we are thrown back in time by 1 month. This is just such an obvious and stupid way to make suspense. I reflect the leader may have seen too many Hollywood action shows. Or maybe he is hoping for a TV contract.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
In 1999 Norwegian Police Inspector Harry Hole is assigned to the Norwegian Security Service undercover scrutiny of the neo-Nazis as a form of punishment for embarrassing the brass. The recovering alcoholic knows this will be tedious but also realizes until he is forgiven he must contend with the ennui of watching skinheads act like pompous bullying idiots in Oslo and cannot use a drink as terribly as he needs one to dull the boredom.
But, the firing of a rare gun wakes him out of his stupor. His junior partner Ellen Gjelten links the weapon to vicious Neo-Nazi Sverre Olsen and WW II as murder in 1944 ties to a diabolical assassination plot in 1999 with only Hole in the way of preventing the first step of a brilliant plot made over five decades ago.
The tale line never loses its quick-paced while switching eras back and into the world between 1944/46 and 1999. Police procedural fans will appreciate the 1999 obstinate efforts of acrimonious Hole, ignoring the brass and to a degree his partner, in order to prevent a catastrophe that could be his nation’s second darkest hour. But, the fascination in the tale is back in WW II where leader Jo Nesbro paints a dark dismal picture of much of Norway sympathetic with the Nazis and that tie still exists with a Neo-Nazi crowd.
Harriet Klausner
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5
The leader has gotten some brilliant reviews in the U.S. press which I do not know. The book has a clever, convoluted plot with an past background of the Norwegians who fought in WW2 in the Nazi Army against Communism. But, none of the characters have any depth to them nor is there any real sense of place. It would make a better television movie as the cinematography could provide the latter. I have no interest in reading more of this leader’s work.
Reader’s Rating: 3 / 5