MobileRead November 2014 Discussion: The Bat (spoilers)

[WT Sharpe]

The time has come to discuss the November 2014 MobileRead Book Club selection, The Bat by Jo Nesbø. What did you think?

[treadlightly]

I rated it 3/5 stars. This is regarded as the first in the series, but there was no introduction about who Harry was or what he looked like. We get some background sprinkled through the book later, but the beginning was abrupt. There were some plot holes/implausible events that bothered me. Of *course* Harry had to run through the crocodile's pen and the villain's end was fairly predictable once the finale's setting was revealed.

This author is very popular and the later books in the series were actually translated first, so I'm guessing they are much better. This book didn't make me feel warm and fuzzy towards Harry at all, but it just might be that I don't like characters that are addicts in general. I'm as yet unsure if I will keep reading.

[ccowie]

I found this to be a pretty run of the mill mystery. Frankly I was bored through most of it and don't see what all the fuss is about. Some of the book cover type reviews indicated that I would be shocked and engaged as Harry's deep dark secrets were revealed. Well, not so much.

The plot itself was okay, but the characters really weren't compelling enough to hold my interest. And I got a little tired of the Australia geography lesson, complete with quirky animal descriptions. I'd reread In a Sunburned Country if I wanted that. Over this past year I've read some of the Dresden Files books, several Gamache books, a few of the Bruno books and The Cuckoo's Calling; all much better books.

[Dazrin]

I enjoyed it well enough but am probably not going to keep reading the series. I really didn't care for drunk Harry, when he was sober he wasn't as bad, although I was continually surprised he was given as much leeway as they gave him. I did enjoy some of the folk-tales and background information though.

Mystery/thriller/procedurals aren't really my favorite types of books and I have recently started the Harry Bosch series and prefer that to this one, so the rest of this series probably won't show up in my reading lists. Maybe if I start seeing "the other books are so great!" posts in the "What are you reading" thread.

[ATDrake]

I read this a couple of months ago while I was binge-reading the entirety of the series.

While it does have a few of the core elements that characterize the series overall, this was basically a very non-representative start to it, and IMHO, the Harry Hole books don't start to get good until he sets up shop in Oslo.

I actually liked the Australian tour bits, but then I have a high tolerance for travelogues. However, while I didn't mind the actual stories, the constant tying in of stuff to aboriginal mythology simply didn't work for me and felt like it was trying too hard to plant symbolic Clues that Harry (and the Gentle Reader) was supposed to realize were important and relevant foreshadowings later. And the plot itself and the ensuing storytelling meandered badly in a way that's unconnected to the constant road-tripping.

Also, knowing in advance from later novels that the love interest was doomed didn't actually make me have less of an emotional investment in their relationship (I'm generally a no-romo, so not interested in love interests to begin with), and I did like her character.

But during their scenes together, I kept anticipating when and how it would happen (means and method vaguely alluded to but not actually mentioned in the later books), and their relationship read a bit shallow to me since Harry was recalling it in later books as the Great Love Of His Life Tragically Ended and obviously they're only been acquainted a short time and don't seem particularly wrapped up in one another, and his reminisce also portrayed the outcome of the case as an impulsive revenge killing in retaliation for his girlfriend's murder, which turned out to be not quite what actually happened.

Maybe both of these discrepancies can be later explained as Harry rewriting his memories as to how things should have happened (or Nesbø forgetting the finer details of his plot).

And, as usual, the author kills off the other character I kind of liked as part of the escalating stakes (Andrew? the Australian cop who partners with Harry initially, whose name I've forgotten), but that tends to happen a lot when I read murder mysteries. (And also fantasy fiction, for that matter. )

In retrospect, this is a pretty unpromising start to the series, even though it won a Glass Key Award for Nordic crime writing (I'd been uncharitably wondering just how unpromising the other contenders were that year), and the 2nd book set in Bangkok is somewhat better if you want to read a Norwegian fish-out-of-water detective story.

I'm glad that Nesbø seems to have abandoned what looked like an earlier idea to have Harry be a hot-shot globe-trotting international case-solver of overseas murders involving Norwegian citizens in exotic locales, in favour of bringing him home to Oslo to solve more domestic crimes in a much-better and more richly detailed setting with a strong local flavour and supporting cast, so that the appeal of the books doesn't entirely depend on the exotic location/shocking crime aspect and Harry's admittedly YMMV level of likeability.

Quite frankly, if you want to actually read the Harry Hole series, your best starting point is at #3, The Redbreast, and the peak of the series runs from #4-6, IMHO, even though #7 The Snowman, seems to be the volume that's been getting the most attention lately with a potential film adaptation in the works (I think it's kind of overly sensationalistic and overrated but did overall have a mostly decent story which did set up some interesting follow-up character development in the next few novels).

[Synamon]

My first exposure to Jo Nesbo was with The Redbreast, it was an above average mystery with an interesting viewpoint, but I was not impressed at all with The Bat.

My main criticism is that the info dumps about Australian culture and mythology took me out of the story, which wasn't that compelling in the first place. Also, Harry's involvement in the police investigation didn't feel realistic and the bizarre elements of the plot never seemed grounded, instead they felt forced and only included for shock value.

I second ATDrake's comment that this book is quite different to the Harry Hole books set in Norway.