Harry Hole has a plan, it’s simple: He wants to drink himself to death. He assumes that Los Angeles should be a good starting point for that. This is where Nesbø’s newest novel begins. The drinking project is going well, interspersed with one or more joints. The money is running out, the downturn is by recipe, but then there are also people in the world to connect with. On the way. The aging actress Lucille has borrowed an awful lot of money from Mexican drug lords. They were going to finance a film. It went down the toilet. Debt is collected. Men threaten emphatically, they come driving in a Chevrolet Camaro with signs from the south of the border. Harry Hole has many downsides in life, but he doesn’t let his friends down. Not if it can be avoided. Suddenly he stands once more, staring into the muzzle of a handgun. In principle, that should be the end of Harry. Again. And that, before the “Blood Moon” has started, and Harry is back in Oslo. Is there more now? Upon reflection and a bit of googling, I think it must be the thirteenth time I open and read a new Harry Hole novel from Jo Nesbø. The first came in 1997. Does the author never run out, bored, tired of the alcoholic anti-hero, the Oslo man, the expert on serial killers, trained by the FBI itself? Is there more to say about Harry Hole? Somewhere in the book, Harry Hole’s two old friends, the psychologist Ståle Aune and the ex-taxi driver Øystein Eikeland, discuss what drives Harry, where he continues to work despite the fact that the case has been solved (which otherwise turns out not to be ). Aune suggests a need for order in an otherwise chaotic life. Øystein has another theory: So maybe it’s like that with Nesbø himself too: This is what he does. Seven serial killers in life Harry Hole’s specialty is serial killers. And such criminals are rare. Harry himself says that statistically speaking, you can pass a serial killer on the street seven times in a lifetime. In other words, the genre is not realistic in itself, but it is brutal. Often to a great extent. Harry shakes off his drunkenness and makes it to Oslo with an opportunity to get Lucille out of the clutches of the gangsters. Two young women have disappeared, and Dagbladet’s crime star revels in clicks when he insistently mentions the girls’ connection to a wealthy businessman in his sixties named Markus Røed. Norwegian police stand firm. Røed wants out of the spotlight and offers ex-policeman Harry big money to solve the case. Harry makes a Mexican deal – with a few days’ gallows deadline – he will solve this. Røed’s fee will get Lucille released. Otherwise, she dies. This Munch Museum “Blood Moon” barely manages to tie the bag again before it reaches 500 pages. If it is too far? This time I answer “yes”. The introduction is at its slowest, or just a bit ordinary. The search for the final revelation is long and tortuous, the side tracks and dead ends many, Harry makes mistakes, it goes really wrong several times. After all, I manage to think “that’ll do for now”, at the same time there is a drive in the book that requires finishing reading. Because, there is a lot that comes up in this story. The voltage level is one example. The text’s proximity to the present is another. Nesbø’s, and Harry’s, dealings with the new Oslo are often both well-formulated and witty. New features in Oslo’s cityscape get their ear figs from several angles. Like here: As usual with Nesbø, the text contains quite a few references to music and other pop culture. Most things also fit well here. The character drawings eventually take on serious form. Thus, the dialogues also rise to a level that is close to Nesbø’s best. There are no pretty murders The Harry Hole books have more than once been criticized for their explicit descriptions of violence. In my opinion, he has also gone a long way over the line a few times. But which line? It seems to me sometimes both hollow and double standards to wish for prettier and less shocking murders in literature. Like it or not, a murder is an event where one person takes the life of another – using violence. It neither is nor can be “pretty”. In “Blood Moon” a method of murder has been hatched which, in its outspoken scientific nature, is macabre and downright disgusting. As the reader understands what it is all about, reading at the dinner table can quickly become something you wish you hadn’t done. Will there be more books? At the same time, it cannot be denied that it is all connected in ways that are partly fascinating. When the dominoes begin to fall in earnest, both who and why take on expanded meaning. It also doesn’t hurt that all the killer’s (and Nesbø’s) inventions can be googled and virtually verified. To a certain point, mind you, and fortunately. What has been problematic in the series about Harry Hole, I think, lies precisely in this hatching of new bestial ways of taking life. Not because they are supposed to be so brutally violent, but because I can miss an anger, a commitment on behalf of the victim – against the evil. Empathy, if you will. If it is missing, the line of cynicism is quickly crossed. And it’s definitely not good. No matter how many books it might sell. In the case of “Blood Moon”, I’m not sure if that line is undisturbed, but it probably lands on balance. When we come to the question of whether there will be another book about Harry Hole, I am absolutely sure. It does. news reviews TITLE: “Bloodmåne” Author: Jo Nesbø Publisher: Aschehoug Genre: Crime Number of pages: 487 Date: Autumn 2022 More Nesbø reviews: HØR NESBØ IN “DRIVKRAFT”: When he was 19, Jo Nesbø understood for the first time in his life that talent was not enough. Hear the author tell about the journey from apple-kicking football talent to hard-working musician and writer, about morning routines and the climbing wall in the bedroom.
ttn-69
