The Redeemer

Jo Nesbo, Don Bartlett (trs.)

The Redeemer

One freezing night in Oslo, Christmas shoppers gather to listen to a Salvation Army street concert. An explosion cuts through the music, and a man in uniform falls to the ground, shot in the head at point-blank range. Harry Hole and his team have little to work with: no immediate suspect, no weapon and no motive. But when the assassin discovers he has shot the wrong man, Harry Hole's troubles have only just begun. After some exceptionally shrewd detective work, the team begins to close in on a suspected hit man, monitoring his credit card, false passport and the line to his employer. With no money, only six bullets and no place to stay in the bitter cold, the hit man becomes increasingly desperate. He will stop at nothing to eliminate his target. 3.3 out of 5 based on 3 reviews
The Redeemer

Omniscore:

Classification Fiction
Genre Crime, Thrillers & Mystery
Format Paperback
Pages 464
RRP £12.99
Date of Publication March 2009
ISBN 978-1846550409
Publisher Harvill Secker
 

One freezing night in Oslo, Christmas shoppers gather to listen to a Salvation Army street concert. An explosion cuts through the music, and a man in uniform falls to the ground, shot in the head at point-blank range. Harry Hole and his team have little to work with: no immediate suspect, no weapon and no motive. But when the assassin discovers he has shot the wrong man, Harry Hole's troubles have only just begun. After some exceptionally shrewd detective work, the team begins to close in on a suspected hit man, monitoring his credit card, false passport and the line to his employer. With no money, only six bullets and no place to stay in the bitter cold, the hit man becomes increasingly desperate. He will stop at nothing to eliminate his target.

Reviews

The Times

Marcel Berlins

The Norwegian Jo Nesbo has been gradually climbing up the competitive league of Nordic crime writers. With The Redeemer he's touching the summit, and his hero, the stubborn, insubordinate Oslo detective Harry Hole, has become my favourite copper from those parts... Terrific shocks, tension and atmosphere.

13/03/2009

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Times Literary Supplement

Sean O'Brien

It is better than you might expect, but that is no basis for enthusiasm. When popular novelists, stung by critical disregard while contemptuous of it, reject literariness and describe themselves as storytellers, they may often be wrong in all but the barest mechanical sense, but they raise some useful general points: rather wholehearted pulp than earnestness; rather economy than “weight”; and rather winter in a canning factory in Narvik than John Grisham.

11/02/2009

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The Independent

Jane Jakeman

If you want a big book which tells you a lot with fast-moving narrative, it will keep you occupied. Yet The Redeemer is excessively long: too many kitchen sinks heaved into the plot. A leaner, meaner storyline and less of a mission to inform would have increased its literary qualities.

13/03/2009

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