Overview:
A fantastically gripping thriller from the best-selling author of The Snowman.
Like all of the thrillers Jo Nesbø has written about brooding Oslo police investigator Harry Hole, The Redeemer arrives on these shores upon a tide of glowing notices. The Globe and Mail calls it a "tour de force," The London Times reports that Nesbø is "touching the summit," and the Danish newspaper Berlingske Tidende promises (somewhat alarmingly) that the author "will nail you to the couch for hours on end."
I can't stand Nesbø's books. That includes The Redeemer, which, like his earlier novels, strikes me as pat, lurid and, above all dull, moving at a fatally sedate pace.
The problem is those good reviews. I have no reason to doubt their sincerity or the discernment of Nesbø's millions of admirers. When such a troubling gap exists, perhaps it is best to acknowledge the irreducible subjectivity of reading, which the judicious third-person voice of most book reviews aspires (correctly!) to transcend. All I can say is that I didn't like The Redeemer; I don't feel confident that it means you won't.
Part of the reason for my distaste is sentences like this: "Harry was six feet and four inches of sullen alcoholic, and the fact that he was a brilliant detective mildly worked in his favor, but no more than that." Hole is a classic noir anti-hero, which is to say that he is a genius surrounded by only two sorts of people, acolytes and incompetents; that his flaws are glamorous, noble and sexually irresistible; and that we are supposed to be in awe of his genius (nevermind that the author often relies on fantastic coincidence to resolve his plotlines) and at ease with his ugly extra-judicial choices.
The case on which Harry brings this doomed allure to bear in The Redeemer occurs in the frigid Christmas season of Norway, when a Croat hit man kills a member of the Salvation Army. Nesbø does a good job of portraying this Christian institution, whose quasi-military command structure encourages abuse and corruption, and also wins our unlikely sympathy for the murderer, who is tormented by his past as a child soldier.
These minor triumphs are not surprising, because Nesbø is indisputably talented. (The Snowman is the best and most propulsive showcase of his skills.) He has wit and the ability to surprise. But The Redeemer is nevertheless a plodding, interminable book, populated by flat characters, whose portentous religious overtones reach a pitch of tedium Dan Brown might feel proud to attain.
In one of the few moments when Harry threatens to burst into a third dimension in The Redeemer, he says, "I believe in the next promise … that people can keep a promise even though they broke the last one." It is a moving and true sentiment. But readers are ruthless, and for my part, though I have tried faithfully to like him, Nesbø has broken one too promises.
ENJOYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!
Sincerelyours
And Blessed Are The Ones Who Care For Their Fellow Men!
No comments:
Post a Comment