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Summary
Summary
"Astonishingly confident. . . . The Devil's Star scores with an intriguing plot and Nesbo's mastery of pace and tension." -- The Times (London)
From one of the most celebrated crime writers in Europe and the award-winning author of The Redbreast comes an epic thriller featuring Police Detective Harry Hole. In the vein of the crime novels of James Patterson and Dennis Lehane, Jo Nesbo's The Devil's Star is an intricately plotted and suspenseful thrill-ride from beginning to end.
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
A serial killer taunts Harry Hole in Nesbo's searing third crime novel to feature the Oslo police detective to be made available in the U.S. (after Nemesis). Still suffering from alcohol-fueled demons and obsessed with hunting for evidence against a clearly dirty cop, Hole grudgingly agrees to help look into the murder of a woman whose finger has been amputated and a red diamond stuck under her eyelid. More bodies follow, with the murderer leaving identical five-pointed diamonds (the titular devil's star) at each crime scene. At first the killings appear to be random, but Hole soon discovers an ominous pattern. Nesbo brilliantly incorporates threads from earlier novels, including Hole's often tumultuous relationship with his lover, Rakel, without ever losing the current story's rhythm. Even with-or perhaps because of-his flaws, Hole is arguably one of today's most fascinating fictional detectives. 5-city author tour. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
As a serial killer terrorizes Oslo, Inspector Harry Hole (Nemesis, 2009, etc.) is battling even more fearsome demons. When copywriter Camilla Loen is shot to death, her index finger removed and a star-shaped red diamond tucked beneath her eyelid, Chief Inspector Bjarne Mller has the bright idea of pairing his heir-apparent, Inspector Tom Waaler, with barely functional alcoholic Harry, who's spent most of the previous month on unofficial leave drowning his grief over his late colleague, Officer Ellen Gjeltsen. But Harry doesn't just dislike and distrust Waaler; he's convinced that Waaler is Prince, the mob's inside man who murdered Ellen. So the salt-and-pepper rapport between Harry and Waaler is more like arsenic-and-cyanide. Even pulling Harry off the case so that he can investigate the disappearance of producer Wilhelm Barli's wife turns sour because a parcel containing her severed middle finger swiftly makes it clear that singer/actress Lisbeth Barli has become another victim of the Courier Killer. The exhaustingly wide-ranging case poses three crucial questions. What pattern underlies the Courier Killer's choice of victims and modus operandi? When the police arrest an innocent suspect, can Harry protect him long enough to get the goods on the real killer? And how can he possibly neutralize the hydra-headed Waaler, who grows more dangerous the more he's thwarted? Not all the answers are equally interesting, but even readers new to this white-hot series will be impressed by Nesb's generous plotting and his insight into dark places in the human soul. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* When we last saw Harry Hole, the Oslo police inspector was on the wagon and living with his lover, Rakel, and her young son, Oleg. A normal life seemed possible, at least if he could let go of his obsession with proving that fellow cop Tom Waaler was responsible for the death of Harry's partner (Nemesis, 2009). He couldn't let go, however, and by the time this third installment in Nesbø's riveting series begins, Harry is living alone, back on the booze, and on the verge of being fired. Then, as happened in The Redbreast (2007), the first in the series, a new case brings the drunken detective out of the doldrums. This time it's a serial killer who appears to be preying on random victims across the city. But are they random? Or do the pentagrams (the devil's star ) found at or near the crime sites somehow connect the victims? Nesbo's plot this time, although multifaceted, is not as complex as in the earlier novels, lacking, in particular, the intricate linking of past to present that distinguished The Redbreast, but the tortured hero, fighting and mostly losing the battle with his personal demons, is even more richly developed, and the deadly pas de deux between Hole and Waaler plays itself out to a stunning conclusion. The similarity between Hole and Ian Rankin's equally tormented John Rebus is ever present this time, but Hole may well be the more affecting character, alternately brilliant and deeply flawed, trapped between his obsessions and the seemingly impossible goal of protecting those he loves. Put Nesbø at the top of the Scandinavian crime-fiction ladder, right along with Henning Mankell and Stieg Larsson.--Ott, Bill Copyright 2010 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
Statistically as well as temperamentally, the serial killer is almost exclusively an American phenomenon. So while it's disconcerting to find one of these psychos traipsing around Oslo in Jo Nesbo's thriller THE DEVIL'S STAR (Harper/HarperCollins, $25.99), it's fascinating to watch this Norwegian author adapt our homegrown monster to a foreign culture. Pattern killings are so rare in Norway that members of the Oslo crime squad can't even bring themselves to use the terminology. "Can we say the words aloud now?" one officer finally demands after a third woman is found murdered, missing a finger and adorned with a red diamond in the distinctive shape of a five-pointed star - the "Devil's star" of satanic legend. Harry Hole, the brilliant but problematic hero of this testosterone-stoked series, is the only cop in town who has the expertise to figure out how this vicious killer operates. But Harry is a notorious bad boy ("the lone wolf, the drunk, the department's enfant terrible"), so hot-headed and self-destructive he could derail the investigation as easily as he wrecks his personal relationships. When things go wrong, Harry goes on a bender, but when he's on his game, no one is better than this obsessive detective. He systematically works his way through the intricacies of a plot that speeds along like a bullet train, stopping only to acquire complications from Harry's shadow investigation into a corrupt fellow officer who got away from him in a previous novel, "Nemesis." While Harry's black moods and rebellious character put him in the company of the renegade loners of American crime fiction, his antisocial behavior alienates him from more substantive issues at home. "The Redbreast" the first of Nesbo's novels to be published here (translated, like this one, by Don Bartlett), drew strong parallels between Norway's role in World War II and its present neofascist movements. Although a far less ambitious book, "Nemesis" offered some serious thoughts on the efficacy and value of revenge in a modern society. For all its narrative intricacy, "The Devil's Star" explores no comparable political or ethical issues, either in its by-the-book hunt for the serial killer or in its hero's morbid obsession with his own nightmares. Way back when, in Cara Black's first Aimée Leduc mystery, "Murder in the Marais," the stylish sleuth put a young man in prison for burning down a synagogue and causing two deaths. The arsonist returns in Black's 10th novel, MURDER IN THE PALAIS ROYAL (Soho, $25), with an even uglier story to tell about that night - if someone doesn't kill him first. Aimée is determined to hear that story and bring his accomplice to justice - if she isn't undone by the look-alike impostor who put her partner in the hospital and is systematically destroying their computer security firm. Working her way through Paris's 20 arrondissements, Black has arrived at the district where the city conducts its political business in elegant buildings and fashionable cafes. But in keeping with the American author's intention to go behind these glittering facades to show readers the secret sights of Paris, Aimée steers her investigation into little-known byways like the parfumerie that creates new olfactory sensations by perfuming gloves, and the underground passageways of the Louvre, where staffers zip along on Rollerblades. Aimée's own mode of transport is her Vespa, which she navigates in vintage Valentino boots. Forever young, forever stylish, forever in love with Paris - forever Aimée. What's to be said when a history teacher kills three students and a fellow teacher at a school assembly before shooting himself? The characters in A THOUSAND CUTS (Viking, $24.95), an electrifying first novel by Simon Lelic, say exactly what you'd expect them to, in the first-person narratives that give the story its intimate voice: that the homicidal teacher was a monster, a madman, a crazy person. Given the insane nature of the crime, the police brass expect the case officer, Detective Inspector Lucia May, to file a quick report on this "wacko," this "nut case" and leave the community to bury its dead. But May is disturbed by the interviews she conducts with the teachers, parents and students whose voices are given their own chapters in this meticulously constructed story. After uncovering some shocking new evidence, May tries to deliver her truthful and damning report, raising the alarm on an institutional evil so cruel it can kill. Robert Goddard is a consummate storyteller who constructs a narrative with the sleight-of-hand skills of a pickpocket. That special talent for manipulation is itself the theme of LONG TIME COMING (Bantam, paper, $15), a titillating portrait of a charming con man who is outmaneuvered in one historical period and gets his revenge, nearly four decades later, by working that old black magic on his own nephew. Eldritch Swan, who was mixed up in an art theft executed under cover of the London blitz, spent 36 years in an Irish prison for a more serious political crime of which he refuses to speak. Released in 1976, he talks his nephew, Stephen, into finding evidence to establish the true provenance of those now famous paintings. But is that the only thing behind Eldritch's elaborate subterfuges? And what are we to make of Stephen, who seems to have inherited both his uncle's arrogance and his skill as a con artist? In the end, it's a pleasure to have been strung along by such a master of the art. Serial killers are so rare in Norway that some cops in Nesbo's thriller cant bring themselves to use the term.
Library Journal Review
Devastated by his inability to convince his superiors that fellow detective Tom Waaler is both guilty of his former partner Ellen's murder (The Redbreast) and an arms dealer, Harry Hole goes on a four-week bender. Dragged back to work by his loyal boss, Harry is partnered with Waaler to investigate what quickly looks like a serial killer on the loose in Oslo who leaves star-shaped red diamonds with his victims. Upset by his inability to maintain a relationship with girlfriend Rakel and her son, Harry dries out and buries himself in the case, investigating with only the help of forensic tech Beate and determined not only to identify the killer but finally to get Waaler. Verdict Harry is one of the best lone-wolf cops for the 21st century, and Nesbo's third book is equally as good as The Redbreast and Nemesis. Scandinavian noir is alive and well, and Nesbo is one of its best authors. Highly recommended, especially for readers who like Henning Mankell's Kurt Wallander series (Faceless Killers) or Arnaldur Indridason's Inspector Erlendur series (Jar City).-Jessica Moyer, Univ. of Minnesota, Coll. of Education & Human Development, Minneapolis (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.