The Redeemer, Jo Nesbø - 2009

'It´s all question of moving fast,' Harry said. 'Most of murder cases are solved in the first twenty-four hours or not at all'

Harry Hole is a police detective with a strong alcohol habit but his alcoholism hasn't decreased his great smell sense on crime scenes.

A shot in the middle of a Christmas concert, one of the singers of the Salvation Army choir is dead. His personal record doesn't show any possible enemies and the clues are seemingly none. Helped with a great investigation team, Hole will find an oscure plot behind this apparently isolated crime.

'[...] who on earth would shoot a Salvation Army officer?'

Jo Nesbø managed to tell us a great story with a very detailed precedent of the murder, but what makes more interesting the story is the way he presents all the elements that will result in the assassination of the wrong person.

Oslo is the main scenarium for this great thriller where little details make a lot and the instincts of a very controversial police detective will be the difference between a closed-unsolved case or a...

Keep an eye on: the profile of Harry Hole. He's not a paladin, he's just a normal person with strenghts and weaknesses. As Jeremy Duns (Free Agent 2009, Free Country 2010) said: 'I prefer shades of grey to everything being black or white. I also think life is like that.'

Something that worths to be mentioned about this book: whilst the most of crime books show the trigger fact in the first chapter, Mr. Nesbø does it close to page 100 and even so, he knows how to keep the reader sticked to the book.

Some interesting topics that came to my mind reading this book: addictions and the consequences to the families of addicts, the very important work of AA around the world, the Salvation Army - what do they do?, how do they fund their activities?, the number or rapes and other crimes committed daily and never reported and the consequent corruption of the police organizations.

'From time to time. I think civilisation's infraestructure is much more fragile than we like to believe. What do you think?'

Jo Nesbø is, by far, one of the top crime authors, nowadays.

A must read


ISBN: 9780099505969