Aaaaggggh. I love this series!!! Addicted. Shamelessly.

Nesbø kills me again and again with the turns and suspense and wondering and erroneous guessing—full of red herrings and misguided trails and the layers are as multiple as Greek pastry. There are cleverly dropped clues along the way, but the text is so well thought out you keep guessing till the end—and apparently don’t put it down for sleep. (Aka: another 2am with Nesbø; who needs sleep?)

At the beginning, we aren’t sure where Harry is because of how things ended last time, cos he might be dead but we sure hope he isn’t. Because of his absence, we get insight into the lives of multiple colleagues we’ve grown to love in the other books. And these scenes are super. I love the way the four work together using their unique talents—and such different personalities—the sisterhood between Beate and Katrina is perfect, Bjorne is so adorably awkward, and the sensitive scatterbrained psychologist Arne gets even more focus in this novel—and his family (Ingrid is jokes for breakfast). I love them all to bits.

Nesbø’s villains are despicable creatures of the sickest minds and motives. The trail of dead bodies is piling up for one particular guy and we still haven’t seen Harry figure him out, but the smell under the cement patio is eventually going to become too much for Ula to handle. (Speaking of Ula—Gosh Ula, woman, how are you so forgiving?)

Jo Nesbø writes even his tertiary and foil characters so uniquely diverse, beautiful, complex, with glaring personalities you can see them coming off the page. Amazing. (Probs spelling all their names wrong as I listen to the audiobooks; Robin Sachs was doing a great job, but for this one Good Old John Lee took over and we who know narrated tomes know how good John Lee is with the voices and building atmosphere…)

…on a personal note: THANK YOU for at least some beauty in the midst of tragedy!! I loved that ending!!

Right up until the bit with Aurora… Now I have to go and find the next one asap…cos what’s happening with Aurora?

PS: Why has this not been adapted by Norwegian television yet? I’d love this as a new Scandinavian Noir series… I’m running out of them, Netflix. Get on this please. 

(But tbh even if they do, and I watch them all, books are still always far superior.)