The Redbreast: A Harry Hole Novel

“An elegant and complex thriller….Harrowingly beautiful.” —New York Times Book Review

“The Redbreast certainly ranks with the best of current American crime fiction.” —Washington Post

Jo Nesbø, the New York Times bestselling author of The Snowman, has solidified his spot as one of the most exciting Scandinavian crime writers. The Redbreast is the third installment in Nesbø’s tough-as-nails series featuring Oslo police detective Harry Hole. 

No disrespect meant to Henning Mankell and Stieg Larsson, but Jo Nesbø, the New York Times bestselling author of The Snowman, is the most exciting Scandinavian thriller writer in the crime fiction business. The Redbreast is a fabulous introduction to Nesbø’s tough-as-nails series protagonist, Oslo police detective Harry Hole. A brilliant and epic novel, breathtaking in its scope and design—winner of The Glass Key for best Nordic crime novel and selected as the best Norwegian crime novel ever written by members of Norway’s book clubs—The Redbreast is a chilling tale of murder and betrayal that ranges from the battlefields of World War Two to the streets of modern-day Oslo. Follow Hole as he races to stop a killer and disarm a ticking time-bomb from his nation’s shadowy past. Vogue magazine says that “nobody can delve into the dark, twisted mind of a murderer better than a Scandinavian thriller writer”…and nobody does it better than Jo Nesbø! James Patterson fans should also take note.

Detective Harry Hole embarrassed the force, and for his sins he’s been reassigned to mundane surveillance tasks. Butwhile monitoring neo-Nazi activities in Oslo, Hole is inadvertently drawn into a mystery with deep roots in Norway’sdark past, when members of the government willinglycollaborated with Nazi Germany. More than sixty years later,this black mark won’t wash away—and disgraced oldsoldiers who once survived a brutal Russian winter arebeing murdered, one by one. Now, with only a stained and guilty conscience to guide him, an angry, alcoholic, error-prone policeman must make his way safely past the trapsand mirrors of a twisted criminal mind. For a conspiracy is taking rapid and hideous shape around Hole . . . and Norway’s darkest hour may be still to come.

“Exciting, witty, melancholy and thought-provoking.” - Daily Telegraph (London)

“Paced to grip and twiddle with your insides, this is a fine thriller.” - Sunday Sport

“Shifting effortlessly between the last days of WWII on the Eastern front and modern day Oslo, Norwegian Nesbo spins a complex tale of murder, revenge and betrayal.... Perfectly paced and painfully suspenseful, this crime novel illuminates not only Norway’s alleged Nazi ties but also its present skinhead subculture. Readers will delight in Hole, a laconic hero as doggedly stubborn as Connelly’s Harry Bosch, and yet with a prickly appeal all his own.” - Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“An elegant and complex thriller . . . Ingenious design. . . . The engineering of the interlocking plot pieces is intricate because it has to support Nesbo’s complicated ideas—and dire thoughts—about Norwegian nationalism, past and present. . . . [An] ambitious book . . . Harrowingly beautiful scenes . . . Pristinely translated by Don Bartlett, Nesbo’s book eloquently uses its multiple horrors to advance a disturbing argument: suppressing history is an open invitation for history to repeat itself.” - New York Times Book Review

“Reading The RedBreast is like watching a hit movie.... The pacing is swift. The plot is precise and intricate.... The Redbreast is surprisingly witty at times and often grim. But it’s always smart.” - USA Today

“An elegant and complex thriller . . . Ingenious design. . . . Harrowingly beautiful scenes.” - New York Times Book Review

“Reading THE REDBREAST is like watching a hit movie. Author Jo Nesbo’s scenes are so vivid that you can imagine them playing across the big screen. The pacing is swift. The plot is precise and intricate. The characters are intriguing.” - USA Today

“[A] bold, ambitious thriller.” - Kirkus Reviews

“A fine novel.... The Redbreast certainly ranks with the best of current American crime fiction.” - Washington Post Book World

“Certainly ranks with the best of current American crime fiction.” - Washington Post Book World

“Nesbo has been one of Norway’s leading crime-fiction authors for 10 years, and his American debut shows why.... Nesbo has a terrific feel for character, and Hole, while sharing characteristics with so many similarly melancholic modern cops (including, of course, Mankell’s Kurt Wallander), carves a place of distinction for himself in a crowded field.” - Booklist (starred review)

“Shifting effortlessly between the last days of WWII on the Eastern front and modern day Oslo, Norwegian Nesbø spins a complex tale of murder, revenge and betrayal. . . . Perfectly paced and painfully suspenseful.” - Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Original…demands concentration but it’s worth the effort.” - Literary Review