Book #106: The Redeemer

Title: The Redeemer
Author: Jo Nesbo
Enjoyment Rating: 6/10
Source: Ordered used from Amazon
Referral: the next book in the series I've been reading

The other day we were all sitting around the table eating dinner. "This corn is like manna," Eddie said. In truth, it was just a bag of frozen Schwan's corn steamed in the microwave, but my man is easy to please. Then Bryce (not a corn lover) said, "Didn't manna taste bad? I mean, the Israelites were begging God to send them different food. They even ate quail because they were so sick of manna" (our neighborhood is filled with quail, so the idea of eating those cute little birdies is not a popular one around here). Eddie explained that even though manna probably tasted pretty good, you'd get sick of eating any food, even good food, for three meals every day for forty years.

The point of this long introduction is that even though I really like Jo Nesbo, I've gotten to a point in my life where I can't read four 600-page Nesbo books in a month without getting sick of them. Annie read all of the Harry Potter books this summer and started back into reading The Sorcerer's Stone before her tears for Tonks and Lupin were even dry. I remember summers where I read all of the Anne of Green Gables books multiple times, but either I've changed or Nesbo is just too gritty to read serially.

That's not to say that The Redeemer isn't a good book. I still think that Nesbo does a good job getting in the mind of Harry Hole, of the killer, and of the other characters in this book. In The Redeemer, a contract killer has been hired to make his last hit before retirement, and it goes horribly wrong (think The American taking place in Oslo and a protagonist much less handsome than George Clooney). I did figure out some of the layers of the mystery before they were revealed, which doesn't diminish my pleasure because it makes me feel smart. I'm also not sure I buy the whole idea that the killer was a redeemer, but I can see how Harry Hole would feel that way.

If The Snowman is truly the best book in the Harry Hole series, I can see that Nesbo has set it up well, because this book ends with Harry experience both loss and a hope at a better future. I'm eager to read The Snowman, in about six months. I need a little break from Hole and his depressive, alcoholic, smoking, cycling, trying-to-do-gooding ways.