Review of 'The Bat' on 'Goodreads'
2 stars
Despite being a fan of Scandi noir I'd missed Jo Nesbo's Harry Hole series until now. I started at the very beginning (a very good place to start), and have to say I wasn't especially impressed by the first book. "The Bat" sees Oslo detective Harry Hole sent to Sydney to liaise with local police around the murder of a Norwegian lass. The plot is formulaic, with several tired tropes:
- Harry finds a love interest who becomes one of the serial murderer's next victims.
- Our indomitable hero is a recovering alcoholic who falls off the bandwagon during the book.
- He easily makes breakthroughs which eluded his Australian colleagues.
Add to this a lack of detailed awareness of Australian police procedure and a lack of concision in the writing and editing, and it was not an outstanding read. I'm concerned that coming books may include some of the …
Despite being a fan of Scandi noir I'd missed Jo Nesbo's Harry Hole series until now. I started at the very beginning (a very good place to start), and have to say I wasn't especially impressed by the first book. "The Bat" sees Oslo detective Harry Hole sent to Sydney to liaise with local police around the murder of a Norwegian lass. The plot is formulaic, with several tired tropes:
- Harry finds a love interest who becomes one of the serial murderer's next victims.
- Our indomitable hero is a recovering alcoholic who falls off the bandwagon during the book.
- He easily makes breakthroughs which eluded his Australian colleagues.
Add to this a lack of detailed awareness of Australian police procedure and a lack of concision in the writing and editing, and it was not an outstanding read. I'm concerned that coming books may include some of the other tired tropes trotted out by crime writers:
- The book climaxes with the detective himself in a dangerous one-on-one face-off with the perpetrator.
- Crooked colleagues queer the hero's pitch until he identifies and unmasks them.
- Restructuring or retirement or promotion hold an axe over the detective's crime-fighting career, and are only fended off in the final pages.
I'll see what the following books have to offer, but there'll need to have been a substantial improvement to keep me coming back. Perhaps I should skip to the most recent Harry Hole outing and use that to decide whether to read the books in between?
