Audiobook Review: Jo Nesbo's Detective Harry Hole Novels

If you like the Kurt Wallender novels by Henning Mankell, or the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo novels by Stieg Larsson, you'd be like me, wondering whether there are other gripping Skandinavian crime novels out there. Both Mankell and Larsson are Swedish.  Their novels deal with dark undercurrents in the social fabric of Swedish society, the clash between disaffected native inhabitants of the country and the rising populations of immigrants, drug users, white supremacists and the LBGT community.

In looking for the next Larsson and Mankell, I stumbled upon the Norwegian author, Jo Nesbo and his Harry Hole novels. Hole is a dogged but washed out detective from Oslo and who has trained with the FBI in serial killer investigations.  In ten novels from The Bat (1997) to  Police (2013), Hole encounters killers in a Norway that seems about to fall apart at its seems.  His antagonists are murderers who are psychopaths but intelligent with a cruel and mean streak about them. During his investigations, his police department gets hit by enemies. His girl friend or colleagues are slaughtered in the most horrific manners. His child gets embroiled in the underworld of drug use and drug pushing, and even top leaders of the Oslo Police Department is corrupt and would stop at nothing to enrich themselves. Hole is good at what he does, but has a dark penchant for despairing and falling off the wagon and drinking himself to oblivion. The reader wonders whether he can somehow survive it all, but he does.

I found the series in Audiobook form through the Los Angeles Public Library and downloaded the books using the Overdrive App onto my mobile player.

The books are thoroughly enjoyable to listen to while working, cooking, driving, or lying in bed.