In the heat of a sweltering Oslo summer, a young woman is found murdered in her flat—with one of her fingers cut off and a tiny red star-shaped diamond placed under her eyelid. An off-the-rails alcoholic barely holding on to his job, Detective Harry Hole is assigned the case with Tom Waaler, a hated colleague whom Harry believes is responsible for the murder of his partner. When another woman is reported missing five days later, and her severed finger turns up adorned with a red star-shaped diamond ring, Harry fears a serial killer is at work. But Hole's determination to capture a fiend and to expose Waaler's crimes is leading him into shadowy places where both investigations merge in unexpected ways, forcing him to make difficult decisions about a future he may not live to see.
Maybe it's something in the icy water. Along with Ã…ke Edwardson (Sweden), Karin Fossum (Norway), Stieg Larsson (Sweden), and Henning Mankel (Sweden), Jo Nesbo¸ is one of a growing number of Scandinavian crime writers who have burst with great fanfare onto the international scene in the last few years. Much of the action in The Devil's Star will be familiar to aficionados, though the author's characters and atmosphere make clear why Nesbo¸'s star is on the rise in America (he's already wildly popular in Europe). Crime readers who don't yet know Nesbo¸ will embrace the author, his tormented Harry Hole (comparisons have been made to Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch), and the complex, noirish Norway hiding beneath the placid surface.
In the heat of a sweltering Oslo summer, a young woman is found murdered in her flat—with one of her fingers cut off and a tiny red star-shaped diamond placed under her eyelid. An off-the-rails alcoholic barely holding on to his job, Detective Harry Hole is assigned the case with Tom Waaler, a hated colleague whom Harry believes is responsible for the murder of his partner. When another woman is reported missing five days later, and her severed finger turns up adorned with a red star-shaped diamond ring, Harry fears a serial killer is at work. But Hole's determination to capture a fiend and to expose Waaler's crimes is leading him into shadowy places where both investigations merge in unexpected ways, forcing him to make difficult decisions about a future he may not live to see.
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. A serial killer taunts Harry Hole in Nesbø'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. Nesbø 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.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Bookmarks Magazine
Maybe it's something in the icy water. Along with Ã…ke Edwardson (Sweden), Karin Fossum (Norway), Stieg Larsson (Sweden), and Henning Mankel (Sweden), Jo Nesbo¸ is one of a growing number of Scandinavian crime writers who have burst with great fanfare onto the international scene in the last few years. Much of the action in The Devil's Star will be familiar to aficionados, though the author's characters and atmosphere make clear why Nesbo¸'s star is on the rise in America (he's already wildly popular in Europe). Crime readers who don't yet know Nesbo¸ will embrace the author, his tormented Harry Hole (comparisons have been made to Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch), and the complex, noirish Norway hiding beneath the placid surface.