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Old 11-21-2014, 02:10 PM   #5
ATDrake
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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).
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