It turns out Harry is not really meant to do much but follow in the footsteps of the lead detective, a rare Aboriginal member of the Sydney police force, and give the official Norwegian imprimatur to eventually sweeping the unsolved murder under the rug due to lack of evidence. Harry is sent “down under” to Australia from his native Norway to try to solve the murder of a very young Norwegian woman who had been a minor television star back home. Some reviewers say that this first novel gives new insight into Hole’s character, but I didn’t learn a whole lot not already gleaned from later novels. I guess dealing with a whole lot of murders-and murderers–over the years does something to you. While it is gratifying to learn that (1) Hole was once capable of a romantic relationship and (2) that Hole was once capable of having a whole conversation with someone, this novel doesn’t reveal a whole lot more about this morose if brilliant drunk of a detective except that he wasn’t so morose in his early years. This is apparently the debut novel of Nesbo’s Harry Hole series, released in English only recently and after a whole raft of later Harry Hole mysteries were already long in the public domain in their English translation.
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