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The Harry Hole thread.

Started by BritishHobo, September 16, 2013, 09:04:52 PM

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Serge

Small bump! I'm now catching up with the Nesbø books I got for Christmas, and have just finished reading 'The Bat'. I'm glad I didn't start with it, even though it is the first one, as I probably wouldn't have gone any further. Having said that, despite already being full of his trademark red herrings, it's fairly atypical of the series, being set in Australia rather than Norway (I believe 'Cockroaches' is set elsewhere too, but I'm waiting for the paperback of that.) There's also the problem that I knew who the killer was from the first time he appears, as he is referred to in 'The Snowman' (though again, that's my fault for reading them out of sequence, though most British readers will have done the same, given 'The Bat' has only recently been translated.) Not bad, but not classic Harry.

'Nemesis' next, and then the non-Harry 'Headhunters'!

Beagle 2

Just started Nemesis after reading Redbreast on the advice of somebody here I think. Good stuff. I didn't think the writing was up to much at all at first, but the plot keeps you gripped for sure. Maybe things resolve a little too neatly at the end, but I'm definitely going to get stuck in to the rest of them now.

Serge

Although I've still to read 'Nemesis' myself, they do definitely pick up after 'Redbreast'.

phantom_power

The film of Headhunters is brilliant so I have been meaning to get into some textual Nesbo. Is Redbreast the best place to start then?

Serge

I'd say start with 'Redbreast' and then read the rest in order, which is pretty much what I did. Although I missed out 'Nemesis', which I've just caught up on, and it's bloody marvellous. It was weird for me
Spoiler alert
having Beate Lønn introduced in this one,
[close]
given
Spoiler alert
that I'd already read her ultimate grisly fate
[close]
in 'Police' most recently.

I like the fact that the person behind
Spoiler alert
all of the bank robberies except the first isn't explicitly named anywhere in the book, though if you follow it properly, it's obvious who he is.
[close]
I was expecting more of the Waaler story to unfold, and at some point will re-read 'Redbreast', this and 'Devil's Star' in the proper order to see if I missed anything there.

Serge

Veering slightly off-topic, I've just finished the one Nesbø book that doesn't feature Harry[nb]At least, the one that's been translated....[/nb], 'Headhunters', and a bloody marvellous slice of black comedy it is, too. It also features one of the most squirm-inducing sequences I've ever read (
Spoiler alert
Brown hiding under the toilet
[close]
) and the requisite amount of twists and turns. I've ordered the film, so I can see what they've made of it.

BritishHobo

The film sadly loses a lot of backstory, but it's still fucking tense, and the two leads are fantastic, Ja'mie Lannister absolurely terrifying.

Did anybody see Nesbø's Jackpot? Not based on a book, but I've been meaning to check it out for a good while.

Serge

I just watched 'Headhunters', and yes, it is marvellous. It's possible I should have waited for longer after reading the book so I wouldn't nitpick about certain elements being removed or simplified (I knew that
Spoiler alert
the 'Hard Days Night' ringtone
[close]
was unlikely to make the film), but it was still a damn good job. I was also unnerved by the fact that the guy playing Roger Brown managed to simultaneously look like Christopher Walken and Steve Buscemi.

BritishHobo

Can't link on my phone, but Nesbø's been enlisted by Hogarth to update Macbeth for their Revised Shakespeare series in 2016, where a variety of writers will be updating his plays.

BritishHobo

Quote from: http://www.thebookseller.com/news/nesbo-takes-macbeth-hogarth-shakespeare.htmlNorwegian thriller writer Jo Nesbo is to retell Shakespeare's "Macbeth" as part of The Hogarth Shakespeare initiative.

The list, which will launch in 2016 to coincide with the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death, will see contemporary authors retelling the Bard's plays in prose for a 21st century audience. Nesbo, author of the bestselling Harry Hole thrillers, will join illustrious literary names such as Jeanette Winterson, Margaret Atwood and Howard Jacobson.

Becky Hardie, deputy publishing director at Chatto & Windus/Hogarth, acquired world rights in all languages to Nesbo's Macbeth from Niclas Salomonsson at the Salomonsson Agency, Sweden. She said: "From the very start we wanted The Hogarth Shakespeare to surprise and excite readers of all kinds from all over the world. Having an international thriller writer of Jo Nesbo's stature and popularity on board is the perfect realisation of that wish. We can't wait to see what Jo does with Shakespeare's murderous play.'

Nesbo said: "Macbeth is a story that is close to my heart because it tackles topics I've been dealing with since I started writing. A main character who has the moral code and the corrupted mind, the personal strength and the emotional weakness, the ambition and the doubts to go either way. A thriller about the struggle for power, set both in a gloomy, stormy crime noir-like setting and in a dark, paranoid human mind.

"No, it does not feel too far from home. And, yes, it is a great story. And, no, I will not attempt to do justice to William Shakespeare nor the story. I will simply take what I find of use and write my own story. And, yes, I will have the nerve to call it Macbeth."

Author/play pairings on the Hogarth Shakespeare list will see Margaret Atwood tackling "The Tempest"; Howard Jacobson retelling "The Merchant of Venice"; Anne Tyler handling "The Taming of the Shrew"; and Jeanette Winterson retelling "The Winter's Tale".

Fiction imprint Hogarth launched in 2012 as a transatlantic partnership between Chatto & Windus in the UK and Crown in the US.

The Hogarth Shakespeare, announced last year, is an international publishing initiative led by Hogarth UK and published in partnership with Hogarth US, Knopf Canada, Knaus Verlag in Germany, Lumen in Spain, and Random House Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and India.

The novels will be published simultaneously across the English-speaking world in print, digital and audio formats.

BritishHobo

Nesbø's new book The Son comes out in the UK tomorrow, uh... Nesbø-fans. Looks alright an' that.

AnthonyJ

I read The Son a couple of weeks ago and it's good - lots of murder, drugs and a moral contradiction for the reader to ponder over.

Serge

Just finished 'The Son' myself, and it's pretty much up to his usual twisty-turny mayhem-filled standard. The one book it did remind me of is
Spoiler alert
'Complicity' by Iain Banks
[close]
, with its
Spoiler alert
'killer only killing bad guys'
[close]
plot, though at the same time, possibly not that far removed from
Spoiler alert
'Death Wish'
[close]
and similar
Spoiler alert
revenge fantasy
[close]
movies. As usual, didn't see any of the twists coming - how does he keep doing that? Why haven't I tumbled a formula? I was half hoping that one of Harry's colleagues might make a cameo appearance in the book, if not the man himself, seeing as parts are set in what must presumably be the same Police HQ that he worked in.

Quote from: BritishHobo on November 29, 2013, 12:54:24 AM
I suppose I should try some other stuff, but despite my love for the Hole series, I keep finding myself really turned off by almost any other crime fiction out there. It's not that I think crime fiction is bad, there's just such a deluge of it that it's hard to tell what's worth checking out - nothing stands out because, as incredible as some of it may be, they're all presented in identical ways and with similar plots. I only got into Nesbo because of the unique hype over The Snowman.

I'm sure a lot of it is fantastic, but I just don't know how to tell the wheat from the shit.

Try Rankin's Rebus novels. I really came to love the main characters after a while and there's plenty of them to be getting on with (the early ones are a bit formative but they get really good).

Also Peter James' Roy Grace novels are tightly plotted and enjoyable page turners.

BritishHobo

I finally got around to finishing The Son (this has been a really off year so far for reading). It was nice that despite sticking with the same setting (and I too was anticipating some form of crossover, not that the lack of one is in any way a bad thing), he basically took an entirely different tack with the structure. Laying out the facts of the various murders and crimes right at the beginning, and having things develop from there, in direct opposite to his status as a whodunnit crime writer.

I'll have to agree on the twists, as well. Nesbo sure loves his bait-and-switch cliffhangers. And yet they always catch me out. I want to fault him on leaning heavily on them and being predictable, but I can't, because they still work. And they aren't overused.

Quite a touching story in the end. Sonny is a bit like a pleasant Jack Bauer, all the mad relentlessness, but who you can root for without feeling the need to take a long shower afterwards. I love the Harry Hole series, but it is nice to have a closed, stand-alone tale. And he's able to create a whole new group of unique and well-drawn characters. Looking forward to more stuff from him. I suppose that Shakespeare update is next.

BritishHobo

Huh. Actually it turns out that Nezzer's actually writing three new books - first, under the pen-name of Tom Johansen, he's writing a book called 'Blood on Snow', which has already been optioned as a film by Warner Bros, to be co-produced by (along with Nesbo himself), and possibly star, Leonardo DiCaprio. There's already a second Blood on Snow book being written to follow a few months later.

But the best part is what is technically the 'third' book. It's called 'The Kidnapping', and Nesbo was working on it before Blood on Snow. It's about the kidnapping of a crime writer called Tom Johansen, author of the 'Blood on Snow' series. While Nesbo was writing it, he began to grow curious about what those Blood on Snow books would be like, and decided to write them first. So we'll get those books, and then we'll get the story of the fictional author, which given that it will also be a crime novel might have some interesting cross-over with his (non)fictional books. Should be pretty fun.

Presumably after that, they'll get around to translating 'The White Hotel' (an older stand-alone novel) and Nesbo's book of short stories.

Serge

Thanks for that - I knew he was writing a book 'as Tom Johansen', but didn't know the rest of it. Excellent stuff!

I was recently offered this book by a rep, which comes with a glowing quote from Nesbø on the jacket, and is being promoted with a playlist for each character. Maybe this kind of post-modernist dicking around is big in Norway at the minute? (Not that it's going to stop me reading this or the Nesbø's.)

BritishHobo

Ah, cheers for the link. I think I might check that out. Certainly some interesting ideas going around.

There were a few points in The Son where I felt the urge to play Depeche Mode. But then that kind of repeated reference to artists/lyrics is something he's done in previous books too.

Serge

So I finally got around to filling the last gap in my Harry collection, and read 'Cockroaches' over the last couple of days. Despite its mainly non-Norwegian setting, I think this is the first book where Harry starts to become the Harry we know (I thought he was a bit of a non-character in 'The Bat'), though I did anticipate a couple of plot points (notably the significance of
Spoiler alert
the red shirt with a number 20 on
[close]
), which is a first.

Now I'm going to have to wait for Nesbø  to write new books instead of catching up on old ones....

BritishHobo

So Blood on Snow came out in the UK yesterday - frustratingly (presumably in fear of losing sales), it's just been published as a Jo Nesbo book, which fucks up the whole Tom Johansson idea. Unless they go mental with The Kidnapping and have Jo Nesbo as the kidnapped author.

Serge

Yeah, I noticed online that it had been published as a straight Nesbø book - as you say, probably because of the pull of his name. I do want to buy it, but having looked at it in a bookshop this morning, it's very slim (for Nesbø) and quite big print - I think I might wait for the paperback.

BritishHobo

Fuck, really? My copy's in the process of being dispatched, but I'm not going to get the chance to take a look at it until my dissertation's in. Be a shame if it's such a quick read, though - Amazon says 208 pages, and with larger print that does sound pretty snappy.

The second one is out later this year, and it makes sense given the nature of the project that these two 'in-universe' books would have been quite quick projects he's put out before returning to the main novel itself. Wish I'd known, though.

Serge

I may break down and buy it sooner, though mostly because my dad is likely to download a copy to read on his NotKindle and can be a bugger for sentences which start, "This won't ruin it for you..." and end with a major spoiler.

Serge

The audiobook of 'Blood On Snow' is being read by Patti Smith, which is an intriguing prospect!

BritishHobo

Not read Blood on Snow yet (waiting until my last two essays are done) but I've just noticed a film adaptation of Nesbo's long-running book series is finally coming out this summer.

Trailer's here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmdPXRBenF0

BritishHobo

Just rinsed Blood on Snow to fuck. It really is a quick read. Some wonderful bits here and there, but it really shows as a quick experiment. The 'sequel' is out in November, so the turnaround's obviously been very quick, and these are just supposed to be lead-ups to the main event.

Unfortunately due to the pseudonym cock-up there are a lot of underwhelmed reviews on Amazon and Goodreads struggling to place it context alongside Nesbo's other novels. Too short, too quick, too shallow, lacking the depth of plot and character that made Harry Hole so popular. Which is fair enough, because there's no way that any of those reviewers should be expected to know that it's not supposed to be a Nesbo novel, it's supposed to be his idea of what a Tom Johansen novel would be like. All these people know is that they paid a tenner for the next Jo Nesbo.

It's only going to get worse when The Kidnapping comes out. I'm really very interested to see how they'll handle that one.

Serge

Ah, interesting to hear - I think I'll definitely wait for the paperback in that case. It is incredibly annoying that they've been put out as Nesbø books - is there even any sign on them that they're him 'writing as Tom Johansen'?

BritishHobo

Nah. Copyright page and author bio just have it down as one of Nesbo's. The protagonist's surname is referenced one time as Johansen which I thought might be a reference, but perhaps that's how it is in the Norwegian as well.

Yeah, I'd say waiting was a good shout. I feel a little bad for the people who paid full price for hardback expecting another big fuck-off crime novel. As a lot of people on Goodreads are saying, it's more of a novella, and a quite deliberately pulpy one.

Serge

'Midnight Sun' (Blood On Snow 2) is out in early November. Paperback of 'Blood On Snow' out in January, so hopefully I won't have blown all of my Christmas money by that time, so will finally pick it up then.

Slightly off-topic, but I spotted that after looking up the new 'Millennium' book, which I didn't know existed until I saw it in WHSmith at St Pancras on Saturday. I suppose it was inevitable that the publishers would get someone to carry on with the series, given how lucrative it's likely to be, though interesting it's not based on the story that Larsson is alleged to have started work on for the fourth book. Has anybody read it? Again, I'll probably check it out when it's published in paperback, out of curiosity.

BritishHobo

Aye, there's been a whole weird battle with his family and his common-law(?) wife. She owns the manuscript he was working on, but they refuse to acknowledge her claim, so've just hired some other fucker to do it. I've never quite understood the notion of getting other authors to do this sort of thing. I understand Anthony Horowitz doing a new Sherlock Holmes, because he's such an enduring, iconic character. But what's the need in continuing the series in a way that's nothing to do with Larsson's vision?

I'm looking forward to Midnight Sun a bit, it looks as if it's going to expand the world of Blood on Snow. Also it's nabbed the title Stephenie Meyer had for her Twilight spin-off, which is sort of funny.