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Jo Nesbø

Biography

Jo Nesbø

Jo Nesbø is a musician, songwriter, economist and #1 New York Times bestselling author. He has won the Raymond Chandler Award for Lifetime Achievement, as well as many other awards. His books have sold 45 million copies worldwide and have been translated into 50 languages. His Harry Hole novels include THE REDEEMER, THE SNOWMAN, THE LEOPARD, PHANTOM, KNIFE and KILLING MOON. He is also the author of THE SON, HEADHUNTERS, MACBETH and several children’s books. He lives in Oslo.

Jo Nesbø

Books by Jo Nesbø

written by Jo Nesbø, translated by Neil Smith - Fiction, Horror, Supernatural Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

In the wake of his parents’ tragic deaths in a house fire, 14-year-old Richard Elauved has been sent to live with his aunt and uncle in the remote, insular town of Ballantyne. Richard quickly earns a reputation as an outcast, and when a classmate named Tom goes missing, everyone suspects he is responsible. No one believes him when he says the telephone booth out by the edge of the woods sucked Tom into the receiver. No one, that is, except Karen, a beguiling fellow outsider. Richard traces the number that Tom prank-called from the phone booth to an abandoned house in the Mirror Forest. There he catches a glimpse of a terrifying face in the window. And then the voices begin to whisper in his ear: She’s going to burn. The girl you love is going to burn. There’s nothing you can do about it.

written by Jo Nesbø, translated by Seán Kinsella - Fiction, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller

Two young women are missing, their only connection a party they both attended, hosted by a notorious real-estate magnate. When one of the women is found murdered, the police discover an unusual signature left by the killer, giving them reason to suspect he will strike again. They’re facing a killer unlike any other. And exposing him calls for a detective like no other. But the legendary Harry Hole is gone --- fired from the force, drinking himself to oblivion in Los Angeles. It seems that nothing can entice him back to Oslo. Until the woman who saved Harry's life is put in grave danger, and he has no choice but to return to the city that haunts him and track down the murderer. However, as the evidence mounts, it becomes clear that there is more to this case than meets the eye.

written by Jo Nesbø, translated by Robert Ferguson - Fiction, Mystery, Short Stories, Suspense, Thriller

Famed for his deft characterization, hair-raising suspense and shocking twists, Jo Nesbø’s dexterity with the dark corners of the human heart is on full display in these inventive and enthralling stories. A detective with a nose for jealousy is on the trail of a man suspected of murdering his twin; a bereaved father must decide whether vengeance has a place in the new world order after a pandemic brings about the collapse of society; a garbage man fresh off a bender tries to piece together what happened the night before; a hired assassin matches wits against his greatest adversary in a dangerous game for survival; and an instantly electric connection between passengers on a flight to London may spell romance, or something more sinister.

written by Jo Nesbø, translated by Robert Ferguson - Fiction, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller

Roy and Carl, brothers from a small mountain town, have spent their whole lives hiding from the darkness in their pasts --- Roy by staying put and staying quiet, and Carl by running far away. Roy believed his little brother was gone for good. But Carl has big plans for his hometown. And when he returns with a mysterious new wife and a business opportunity that seems too good to be true, simmering tensions begin to surface and unexplained deaths in the town’s past come under new scrutiny. Soon powerful players set their sights on taking the brothers down by exposing their role in the town’s sordid history. But Roy and Carl are survivors, and no strangers to violence. As the town’s long-buried past begins to surface, Roy will be forced to choose between his own flesh and blood and a future he had never dared to believe possible.

by Jo Nesbø - Fiction, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller

Harry Hole is not in a good place. Rakel --- the only woman he's ever loved --- has ended it with him, permanently. He's been given a chance for a new start with the Oslo Police, but it's in the cold case office. What he really wants is to be investigating cases he suspects have ties to Svein Finne, the serial rapist and murderer who Harry helped put behind bars. And now, Finne is free after a decade-plus in prison --- free and, Harry is certain, unreformed and ready to take up where he left off. But things will get worse. When Harry wakes up the morning after a blackout, drunken night with blood that's clearly not his own on his hands, it's only the very beginning of what will be a waking nightmare the likes of which even he never could have imagined.

by Jo Nesbø - Fiction, Historical Fiction, Historical Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

Set in the 1970s in a run-down, rainy industrial town, Jo Nesbø's MACBETH centers on a police force struggling to shed an incessant drug problem. Duncan, chief of police, is idealistic and visionary, a dream to the townspeople but a nightmare for criminals. The drug trade is ruled by two drug lords, one of whom --- a master of manipulation named Hecate --- has connections with the highest in power, and plans to use them to get his way. Hecate’s plot hinges on steadily, insidiously manipulating Inspector Macbeth: the head of SWAT and a man already susceptible to violent and paranoid tendencies.

by Jo Nesbø - Fiction, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller

The murder victim is a self-declared Tinder addict. Two days later, there’s a second murder: a woman of the same age, a Tinder user, an eerily similar scene. The chief of police knows there’s only one man for this case. But Harry Hole is no longer with the force. He promised the woman he loves --- and himself --- that he’d never go back: not after his last case, which put the people closest to him in grave danger. But there’s something about these murders that catches his attention, something in the details that the investigators have missed. Now, despite his promises, despite everything he risks, Harry throws himself back into the hunt for a figure who haunts him, the monster who got away.

by Jo Nesbø - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

He was once the kingpin's fixer, but after betraying him, Ulf is now the one his former boss wants fixed. Hiding out at the end of the line in northern Norway, Ulf lives among the locals. A mother and son befriend him, and their companionship stirs something deep in him that he thought was long dead. As he awaits the inevitable arrival of his murderous pursuers, he questions if redemption is at all possible or if, as he's always believed, “hope is a real bastard.”

by Jo Nesbø - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

This is the story of Olav, an extremely talented “fixer” for one of Oslo’s most powerful crime bosses. But Olav is also an unusually complicated fixer. He has a capacity for love that is as far-reaching as is his gift for murder. He has an “innate talent for subordination,” but running through his veins is a “virus” born of the power over life and death. And while his latest job puts him at the pinnacle of his trade, it may be mutating into his greatest mistake.

by Jo Nesbø - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

Sonny Lofthus is a strangely charismatic and complacent young man. He has been in prison for a dozen years, nearly half his life. The inmates who seek out his uncanny abilities to soothe leave his cell feeling absolved. They don’t know or care that Sonny has a serious heroin habit --- or where or how he gets his uninterrupted supply of the drug. Or that he’s serving time for other peoples’ crimes.

by Jo Nesbø - Fiction, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller

When the Norwegian ambassador to Thailand is found dead in a Bangkok brothel, Inspector Harry Hole is dispatched from Oslo to help hush up the case. Surrounded by round-the-clock traffic noise, Harry wanders the streets of Bangkok lined with go-go bars, temples, opium dens and tourist traps, trying to piece together the story of the ambassador’s death, even though no one asked him to or wants him to --- not even Harry himself.

by Jo Nesbø - Fiction, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller

For years, detective Harry Hole has been at the center of every major criminal investigation in Oslo. His dedication to his job and his brilliant insights have saved the lives of countless people. But now, with those he loves most facing terrible danger, Harry is not in a position to protect anyone. Least of all himself...

by Jo Nesbø - Fiction, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller

Inspector Harry Hole of the Oslo Crime Squad is dispatched to Sydney to observe a murder case. The victim is a 23-year-old Norwegian woman who is a minor celebrity back home. Never one to sit on the sidelines, Harry befriends the lead detectives and a witness. They discover that this is only one in a string of unsolved murders, and the pattern points to a psychopath working his way across the country. Harry fears that no one is safe, least of all those investigating the case.

by Jo Nesbø - Fiction, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller

Shots ring out at a Salvation Army Christmas concert in Oslo, leaving one of the singers dead in the street. The trail will lead Harry Hole, Oslo’s best investigator and worst civil servant, deep into the darkest corners of the city and, eventually, to Croatia. An assassin forged in the war-torn region has been brought to Oslo to settle an old debt. As the police circle in, the killer becomes increasingly desperate and the danger mounts for Harry and his colleagues.

by Jo Nesbø - Fiction, Mystery

Former police officer Harry Hole must return to Oslo when the son of the woman he loves is arrested for murder. In order to prove the boy's innocence, Harry sets out on a dangerous investigation that takes him into the world of the most virulent drug to ever hit the streets of Oslo (and the careers of some of the city's highest officials).

by Jo Nesbø - Fiction, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller

Deeply traumatized by the Snowman investigation, Inspector Harry Hole has lost himself in the squalor of Hong Kong’s opium dens. But when a series of women are murdered --- after all spending the night at the same isolated mountain hostel --- he agrees to return to Oslo to investigate the brutal case.

by Jo Nesbø - Fiction, Mystery

It is Oslo in November, and the first snow of the season has fallen. A boy named Jonas wakes in the night to find his mother gone. Antihero police investigator Harry Hole suspects a link between a menacing letter and the disappearance of Jonas’s mother --- and of perhaps a dozen other women, all of whom went missing on the day of a first snowfall.