Author: Jo Nesbo
Enjoyment Rating: ***
This book would be rated: R- for lots of drug use, language, violence
Source: Library copy
Books I've read this year: 122
You know after you've read a whole bunch of books about the same character, they all start to blend together? Like it's hard to remember if the Triwizard Tournament happened in the fourth Harry Potter book or the fifth? That's how I feel about Jo Nesbo's Harry Hole books. I finished this book a few weeks ago, and it took a few minutes for me to stop and figure out the plot, because this story folds into the one before it in a way that makes it hard to separate them.
At the beginning of The Phantom we see Harry Hole returning from Hong Kong, where he has lived for the last few years after quitting the Oslo police force. But he's not coming back for a vacation (no, that's so not Hole's style), he's back because Oleg, the boy who is the son Harry never had (he's actually the son of Rakel, the love of Harry's life, but they are both too messed up to have a long-term functioning relationship), has been arrested for murder on drug charges. While he knows that Oleg's life had gone off the rails since he went to Hong Kong, Harry doesn't believe it's possible that Oleg actually murdered his friend and fellow dealer. So Harry returns to Oslo to sort things out.
The Phantom was an entertaining read that I busted through in a few days. I felt that it was more predictable than some of Nesbo's other stories (I figured out who one of the baddies was way earlier than Harry did, go me!), and it also had more pathos. But I've decided that it's hard to read so many books about someone who is emotionally kind of bankrupt, and who has opportunities to actually talk about hard things, but refuses to do so. I'm sure I'll read the next book (if there is a next one-- the ending was kind of nebulous to this story), but I feel that the books no longer pack an emotional punch for me.
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