Harry (Hole) returns in 2017!

From today's Press Release:

Harvill Secker announce Harry Hole’s return

in a new JO NESBO novel in 2017

THE THIRST by JO NESBO will be published 4 May 2017

19 September 2016: In news that will delight his millions of fans worldwide, Jo Nesbo confirms that his hardboiled Oslo detective Harry Hole will return in his latest novel, THE THIRST, to be published by Harvill Secker in May 2017.

THE THIRST continues the story of #1 bestseller POLICE, Harry Hole’s last outing in 2013, which saw the maverick cop protecting those closest to him from a killer wreaking revenge on the police.  THE THIRST will see Harry drawn back to the Oslo police force when a serial killer begins targeting Tinder daters with a signature killing method that leads Harry on the hunt of a nemesis from his past.  It is the eleventh instalment in Jo Nesbo’s bestselling crime fiction series, which have sold over 30 million copies worldwide and are published in 50 languages.

Jo Nesbo says: ‘I was always coming back to Harry, he is my soul mate. But it is a dark soul, so it is - as always - both a thrill and a chilling, emotionally exhausting experience. But Harry and the story make it worth the sleepless nights.’

THE THIRST is one of several treats in store next year for the millions of Jo Nesbo and Harry Hole fans.  In January 2017, Harvill Secker will publish a 20^th anniversary edition of THE BAT, Jo Nesbo’s first Harry Hole novel, with a new introduction by the author.   In October 2017, Michael Fassbender will star as Harry Hole in the film adaptation of The Snowman, in which Nesbo’s detective tracks a serial killer murdering unfaithful women and leaving a snowman behind as a calling card.  The film will be directed by Tomas Alfredson (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Let the Right One In).

Liz Foley, Harvill Secker Publishing Director, says: ‘2017 will be the year of Harry Hole!  We are delighted to be bringing the millions of Jo Nesbo fans a thrilling new Harry Hole novel in The Thirst  and celebrating Harry’s first adventure with our special anniversary edition of The Bat, as well as watching Harry’s first foray onto the big screen with the film adaptation of The Snowman next autumn. It’s going to be brilliant to be back in Harry’s world again.’ 

Review: Police by Jo Nesbo tr. Don Bartlett

Police by Jo Nesbo translated by Don Bartlett, September 2013, 528 pages, Harvill Secker, ISBN: 1846555965

If you've read PHANTOM then you'll be wanting to know what happened to Harry Hole. If you haven't read PHANTOM then you'll be wondering after a hundred pages plus, where is this Harry Hole, especially given that the cover shouts out “the new Harry Hole thriller”.

The friends of Harry have been brought together by Harry's old police boss Gunnar Hagen to form an unofficial small task-force to solve the latest serial killing spree. The victims are police officers and they are being killed at the scenes of unsolved murders, ones where they themselves were part of the investigation team. The team comprises Katrine Bratt, on loan from Bergen, Beate Lonn and her sidekick Bjorn from Forensics and psychologist Stale Aune and they are working out of the familiar, over-heated room in the basement.

As well as the murder plot there are also several plotlines carried over from PHANTOM including the rise and rise of Police Chief Mikael Bellman and the decline of his enforcer/friend Truls. There is also the matter of the tall coma victim kept under armed guard who seems to be waking up.

Indeed there are so many plotlines that it's impossible to cover them all but the tension is relentless; from the first hundred and forty pages where you want to say “just tell me what happened to him”, to the terrifying murder scenes and the overlapping narratives – where the story cuts away at critical moments to another character, delaying the resolution. In Harry Hole, Jo Nesbo has created one of crime fiction's most charismatic heroes and this is reinforced by his absence from the investigation team. Fans of Harry Hole and Jo Nesbo will enjoy POLICE and be thoroughly absorbed in this typically well-plotted, complicated story with its many misdirections and dead ends. There is a lot going on and not all is neatly tied up at the end.

After the grimness of PHANTOM and the extreme violence of THE LEOPARD, POLICE is more akin to the earlier novels in the series, emotionally similar to THE REDBREAST, and as always, I can't wait for the next one.

Jo Nesbo & Harry Hole news

I was very pleased to receive this press release from Harvill Secker yesterday about two more Harry Hole books coming into English next year and confirming that Phantom wasn't the end of the series:

...POLICE will be published by Harvill Secker in autumn 2013.

POLICE continues the story of PHANTOM, which was a Sunday Times #2 bestseller when it was published in March this year, spending 7 weeks in the top ten. The Harry Hole novels have sold over 15 million copies worldwide, over 3 million of those in the UK.

Fans will also be delighted by the news that COCKROACHES, the second book in the Harry Hole series, will be published shortly after POLICE. With its publication, readers will have access to all ten books in Jo Nesbo’s bestselling series. THE BAT, the first ever Harry Hole novel, was published for the first time in English this October by Harvill Secker and went straight into the Sunday Times bestseller list.

Jo Nesbo visited London last week for the Specsavers Crime Thriller Awards where he was elected into the International Crime Writing Hall of Fame, alongside such luminaries as Agatha Christie, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, P D James, Lee Child, Val McDermid, Kathy Reichs and Mark Billingham.

The Harry Hole books in order.

Harry Hole's Days are Numbered?

In an interview with Jo Nesbo in The Bookseller (9 December 2011), he responds to the question of how much longer has Harry got?:

"...I've had the end in sight since the third novel (The Redbreast). I know how it's going to end. But I'm not going to say when and how. All I can promise is that he will not resurrect."

I've just started Phantom, the ninth in the series and I'll report back on it soon. Already published down under, it's released in the UK on 15 March.

Visit Jo Nesbo's bibliography with reviews over on the Euro Crime website

What I'm Reading: The Leopard

The Leopard by Jo Nesbo, tr. Don Bartlett is published in a few days time. I've been lucky enough to have an advance review copy and also, thanks to Harvill Secker, I've now got an e-copy to take with me on the train tomorrow.

The Leopard is 600+ pages and rather heavy, so I'm really pleased to able to switch between print and e-copy. I do think that offering a free ebook with a print copy would be a great idea.

Anyway, The Leopard is, like The Snowman, a search for a killer who murders in rather unpleasant ways, but it is also about Harry Hole, the man. Here's a paragraph from about third the way in:

"Harry heard the solemnity in his voice. The voice of a man with no capacity to forgive, no consideration, no thoughts for anything except his own objectives. And plied the inverted persuasion technique that had worked for him far too often."

I want to finish this so I can review it on time but equally I don't want to get to the end of it.