The Devil's Star - (Harry Hole) by Jo Nesbo (Paperback)

About the Book

It seems the city of Oslo has a serial killer on its hands. When Detective Harry Hole is assigned to the case, he is not happy with his colleague Tom Waaler, whom he suspects of arms smuggling and murder.

Book Synopsis

"It's fascinating to watch this Norwegian author adapt our homegrown monster [the serial killer] to a foreign culture.... 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."--New York Times Book Review

Detective Harry Hole is on the trail of a diabolical serial killer terrorizing Oslo in another electrifying thriller in the Harry Hole series from the author of The Snowman.

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 to 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 the Back Cover

Oslo is sweltering in the summer heat when a young woman is murdered in her flat. One finger has been cut off and a tiny red diamond in the shape of a pentagram--a five-pointed star--is found under her eyelid. Detective Harry Hole is assigned the case with Tom Waaler, a colleague he neither likes nor trusts. He believes Tom is behind a gang of arms smugglers--and the murder of his partner. But Harry, an off-the-rails alcoholic, is barely holding on to his job and has little choice but to play nice.

Five days later, another woman is reported missing. When her severed finger is found adorned with a star-shaped red diamond ring, Harry fears a serial killer is on the loose. Determined to find the killer and expose the crooked Tom Waaler, Harry discovers the two investigations melding in unexpected ways. But pursuing the truth comes at a price, and soon Harry finds himself on the run and forced to make difficult decisions about a future he may not live to see.

Review Quotes

"Astonishingly confident. . . . The Devil's Star scores with an intriguing plot and Nesbo's mastery of pace and tension." - The Times (London)
"[A] beautifully executed heist drama. . . . Expertly weaving plot lines from Hole's last outing to feature the inspector, The Redbreast (2007), Nesbo delivers a lush crime saga that will leave U.S. readers clamoring for the next installment." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"[A] bold, ambitious thriller. . . . It's well worth sticking with the story; both the hero and the villain are as compelling as the portrayal of Norwegians doing whatever it takes to survive the war and then paying the price. Nesbo bids fair to turn Norway into serious competition for Sweden as Scandinavia's crime center." - Kirkus Reviews
"A fine novel. . . . THE REDBREAST certainly ranks with the best of current American crime fiction." - Washington Post Book World
"An elegant and complex thriller . . . Ingenious design. . . . Nesbo's book eloquently uses its multiple horrors to advance a disturbing argument: suppressing history is an open invitation for history to repeat itself." - New York Times Book Review
"Before he wrote crime thrillers, Jo Nesbø worked as an economist. His smartest investment was Harry Hole, the Oslo police inspector who has made his creator a besteller all over Europe.... A tight, suspenseful mystery.... His narrative is swift and suspenseful. His characters have more depth and ambiguity than those in most thrillers. His plotting is so clever that it begs to be read as self-parody." - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
"The plot lines begin an intricate, inventive intersection. Hole reminds me of Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch, an all-too-human tough guy who is absolutely committed to doing the right thing by any means necessary and damn the consequences. Nesbo winds in strands from previous Harry Hole novels (which have won all sorts of international awards) as he keeps the surprises coming and the suspense high." - New Orleans Times-Picayune
"The Devil's Star is a big, ambitious, wildly readable story that pits the protagonist against a serial killer and an enemy within the Oslo police department.... It's compelling. Harry Hole...can be compared to the early, hard-drinking, rebellious Harry Bosch of Michael Connelly's series.... But Nesbo's novels are...more expansive than Connelly's; he's willing to slow the crime-solving process to introduce strange characters and odd corners of Oslo. In this he sometimes recalls Ian Rankin's John Rebus novels with their rich, far-flung portrait of Edinburgh. But Nesbo always returns to the talented, tormented Hole.... A complex plot.... It's a novel worth reading, for its characters, for the quality of its writing and for its wealth of detail." - Washington Post
"There's Nordic noir, and then there's Nesbo noir. Jo Nesbo's reputation as the reigning bad boy of Norwegian crime fiction has grown steadily in the USA with the critically acclaimed novels The Redbreast and Nemesis and now The Devil's Star...Hole and the killer eventually converge in this sordid, suspenseful tale that veritably drips with blood and angst." - USA Today
"There's Nordic noir, and then there's Nesbo noir. Jo Nesbo's reputation as the reigning bad boy of Norwegian crime fiction has grown steadily in the USA with the critically acclaimed novels The Redbreast and Nemesis and now THE DEVIL'S STAR." - USA Today
"Wild and superb writing.... Nesbo is a celebrated Norwegian noir writer, a member of the current class of superlative Scandinavians showing the rest of the world how to write a proper mystery.... Marvelously structured, each joint in place as true carpentry.... Everywhere, the incredible, deviling grapple with the (sub)consciousness, the tricks we play to get it to spill the beans, the lengths we'll go to discover what the hidden part of us already knows--that's Harry Hole's constant ordeal, and what has made him, deservedly, one of Europe's best-known, best-read detective heroes." - Philadelphia Inquirer
"Readers new to this whitehot series will be impressed by Nesbø's generous plotting and his insight into dark places in the human soul." - Kirkus Reviews
"Searing. . . . 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. . . . Hole is arguably one of today's most fascinating fictional detectives." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"In crime fiction terms, the ongoing Harry Hole is epic along the lines of something Count Tolstoy might have dreamed up. . . . Tremendous emotional resonance." - Toronto Star
"The dense plot is supremely detailed. . . . A crisp, clean translation. . . . Satisfying." - New York Times Book Review
"A gripping tale of political intrigue and sprawling global corruption. . . . With plenty of shootouts and intensely described chase sequences, The Redbreast certainly delivers." - Kirkus Reviews
"A complex tale of murder, revenge and betrayal . . . perfectly paced and painfully suspenseful. . . . Readers will delight in Hole, a laconic hero as doggedly stubborn as Connelly's Harry Bosch, and yet with a prickly appeal all his own." - Publishers Weekly, starred review
"Nobody can delve into the dark, twisted mind of a murderer better than a Scandinavian thriller writer." - Vogue
"A well-crafted rollercoaster of a book. . . . Nesbo sets a cracking pace, the shambolic Hole is exasperating and endearing by turns, and a series of spectacular plot twists lead to a thrilling finale. Highly recommended." - The Guardian (London)
"Superb." - Daily Telegraph (London)
"Nesbo offers up another top-notch mystery thriller, thickly layered, perfectly plotted, and briskly paced to keep readers hooked. With ties to events in The Redbreast, this is an excellent sequel. . . . Recommended for all fiction collections and essential for Scandinavian crime lovers." - Library Journal
"Nesbø has a knack for Euro noir." - Entertainment Weekly
"Nesbo returns with another novel that is every bit the multitextured, complexly plotted, psychologically rich thriller that made Redbreast such an unqualified success. . . . No doubt about it: Nesbo belongs on every crime-fiction fan's A-list." - Booklist (starred review)
"Reading THE REDBREAST is like watching a hit movie. . . . The pacing is swift. The plot is precise and intricate. . . . THE REDBREAST is surprisingly witty at times and often grim. But it's always smart." - USA Today
"Readers now can savor NEMESIS. . . . Nesbo's storytelling abilities are incomparable. NEMESIS is crime novel as art form and great entertainment." - USA Today
"Bucks the trend... Nesbo's long-range plotting is careful, and the debate about the Norwegian elite's behaviour during the war cleverly managed." - London Review of Books
"Jo Nesbo has a credibly scary line on the power of corruption, and his complex plot culminates in a nail-biting episode with overtones of The Day of the Jackal." - The Independent
"Jo Nesbø is my new favorite thriller writer and Harry Hole my new hero." - Michael Connelly