Are you looking for the 'best big crime novel' you could ever hope to get your hands on this year? Look no further. It is Jo Nesbo's The Leopard.
Paperback blurb: In the depths of winter a killer stalks the city streets. Two women are found drowned in their own blood. A third woman is hanged from a diving board.
You are allowing this killing to go on.
The crime scenes offer no clues, the media is reaching fever pitch, and the police are running out of options.
It's time this was stopped...
There is only one man who can help them catch the killer. But Inspector Harry hole doesn't want to be found.
...because I have appointed the next victim.
Latest video of the bestselling author talking about The Leopard at the Edinburgh International Book Festival 2011.
Official trailer for The Leopard:
My take: This book has been translated into the English by Don Bartlett who lives in Norfolk and works as a freelance translator of Scandinavian literature. He has translated, or co-translated, Norwegian novels by Lars Saabye Christensen, Roy Jacobsen, Ingvar Ambjornsen, Kjell Ola Dahl, Gunnar Staalesen and Pernille Rygg.
The Leopard (2011) is the sixth of Nesbo's novels to be translated into English and was awarded The Danish Academy of Crime Writers' Award (Palle Rosenkrantz Prisen) in 2009 for Best Crime Novel of the Year.
It also went to the top (No 1) of the official UK hardcover fiction chart in January 2011, its first week of publication.
Nesbo, apart from being an author, is also a musician, songwriter and economist.
This is an outstandingly pain-filled thriller by a master at work. It is a complicated story with a complicated ending but which starts off with the simple story of a woman caught between two men. Jealousy abounds.
From that one single destructive emotion sparks a myriad of uncontrollable emotions just waiting in the wings for the perfect opportunity to rear its ugly head and when that perfect opportunity presents itself, the offended party takes revenge in a series of unaccountable murders until, in the end, after feeling as if one has been put through the highest cycle of a washing machine, one person's guts and intuition solves the case.
Apart from the extraordinary story, I would say there is a lesson to be learned here if you look out for it. It is not just an excellent story, I honestly think the author has given us something to think about and wisely.
I think the Harry Hole series is not only worth reading but is one of those series that you need to read in your lifetime if you are an avid reader. Yes, Nesbo has come a long way since his first Harry Hole book, The Bat Man (unavailable in the UK at the moment), came out in Norway in 1997. Book 9 in the series, The Phantom, will be available from April 2012.
A reader's excellent review of The Leopard.
Check out Jo Nesbo's official website now for more information.
Nesbo talks about his flawed character, Harry Hole:
Rating: 5/5
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