The Night House by Jo Nesbø

 

(hb; 2023: YA novel. Translated from the Norwegian by Neil Smith.)

 

From the inside flap

“In the wake of his parents’ tragic deaths in a house fire, fourteen-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 the new, angry boy is responsible for his disappearance. No one believes him when he says the telephone booth out by the edge of the woods sucked Tom into the receiver like something out of a horror movie. No one, that is, except Karen, a beguiling fellow outsider who encourages Richard to pursue clues the police refuse to investigate. His sleuthing leads him to an abandoned house in the Mirror Forest, where 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.

“When another classmate disappears, Richard must find a way to prove his innocence—and preserve his sanity—as he grapples with the dark magic that is possessing Ballantyne and pursing his destruction.

“Then again, Richard may not be the most reliable narrator of his own story.”

 

Review

House starts with a horrific, reader-hooking and icky-slurp bang and, with its tightly written and horror-effective set pieces, maintains that character-building (and sometimes twisty) pace throughout the book. The key twist at the end, noted in the book’s cover-flap description, likely won’t surprise seasoned genre readers, but it works and Nesbø makes fresh use of it in House. Set around 1990—filmmaker/FX artist Tom Savini’s remake of George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968) has recently been released— Nesbø’s House is a great, truly horrific-at-times coming-of-age read, one worth owning for those who appreciate turned-on-their-head terror tropes. Fans of Stephen King's early work, Franz Kafka’s 1915 novella The Metamorphosis and Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes (novel, 1962) might especially enjoy House.

Knife by Jo Nesbø

(2019: twelfth book in the Harry Hole series. Translated from the Norwegian by Neil Smith.)

From the inside flap

“Harry is in a bad place. Rakel─the only woman he’s ever loved─has kicked him out, permanently. He’s drinking again. And though he’s been given a chance for a new start with the Oslo Police, it’s in the dreaded cold case office. Wht he wants to be is investigating─what he’s made to be investigating─are new cases that he suspects have ties to Svein Finne, the most notorious criminal in Norway, the serial murder and rapist Harry helped put behind bars a decade ago. Now Finne is free. Free and, Harry is certain, unreformed, and already taking up where he left off.

“But things are about to get worse. When Harry wakes up the morning after a drunken blackout, it’s only the beginning of what will be a waking nightmare. . .”

Review

Knife is an excellent, near-impossible-to-set-down pot boiler thriller that─for the most part─masterfully builds on previous events in the series, repercussions from Harry’s and others’ pasts that now come to often-violent fruition. Main characters are knocked off or their stories warmly or horrifyingly expanded upon, big-and-bold twists and turns punctuate every other chapter, and its pace is full-speed-ahead.

The only misstep is the identity of the main killer(s) stalking Harry’s family. While it was technically well-foreshadowed, its seeds planted expertly along the way, the reason for his/her turn to the dark side felt forced, a trifle-excuse of a justification for Nesbø to further show off his clever chops. That said, it is a minor nit, albeit a near-the-end-book-take-away one, in an otherwise wow-that’s-popcorn-worthy entertaining read.

Knife is worth reading, and owning, if you can get past a killer (or killers) whose breaking points seem writerly. Followed by Killing Moon.

The Thirst by Jo Nesbø

(hb; 2017: eleventh novel in the Harry Hole series. Translated from the Norwegian by Neil Smith.)

From the inside flap

In Police─the last novel featuring Jo Nesbø’s hard-bitten, maverick Oslo detective─a killer wreaking revenge on the police had Harry Hole fighting for the safety of the people closest to him. Now, in The Thirst, the story continues as Harry is inextricably drawn back into the Oslo police force. A serial murderer has begun targeting Tinder daters─a murderer whose MO reignites Harry’s hunt for a nemesis of his past.”

Review

Warning: possible -- if mild -- spoilers in this review.

Thirst is a mostly excellent thriller that moves along at a breakneck pace, continuing plot threads from the last two novels, as well as bringing in previous villains ─ Valetin Gjerten and Svein “the Fiancé” Finne ─ to cause further mayhem. Like some of the better Harry Hole books, it is a character-rich, intriguing and plot-pretzelesque read until its disingenuous Thin Man-esque Reveal scene [hint: do not leave loaded weapons lying near the bad guy you are outing!]. This minor nit aside, this is a worthwhile entry in this long-running series.

Followed by Knife.