Great Book!

The Snowman for all the obvious reasons.

Harry Hole of course.

I could not put this down. It was so good, I listened to it a second time a few days later.

Robin Sachs' narration.

Haven't finished listening to it yet.

Yes, but too long for me to do so. Have to divide it.

I'm tempted to buy Redbreast since Robert Sachs is also the narrator for that Jo Nesbo book as well.

It's a bit off putting that Harry Hole has such addiction problems. Wish he'd get over that. I'd probably give every book 5 stars then.

Nesbo does it again. I've never been disappointed when listening to a Nesbo book. Sachs does an awesome job at bringing the story to life.

The last place you'd expect to find a Norwegian detective is an opium den in Hong Kong where he continues to engage in his self destructive behaviors. Yet that's where Kaja Solness finds him when she's assigned to bring him back to Oslo to help with the latest series of murders. After all, he's the only one with experience in tracking serial killers.

The methods the killer comes up with are unusual and torturous. We experience the first one right out of the gate and when I say we experience it, that's exactly what I mean. Nesbo writes that scene, as well as most others, so well it's as if we are living it. I was so scared after those first few pages that I wanted to go on, but my heart was pounding so hard I wasn't sure I could hear the narrator. But I went on. I told my husband, "You think Devil's Star was good, try this one." It took him about thirty seconds to load the story to his listening device. I still beat him to the end.

Nesbo keeps us engaged throughout the story with so many surprises that it's tricky to keep up. But if you listen carefully, you can. It's a fast-paced ride.

There are five other Harry Hole mysteries, but they can be read as stand alone novels. Nesbo gives you just enough information to fill you in without boring those who have read the previous ones. His newest one, The Phantom, is due to be released in October 2, 2012.

I'm a fan of Nesbo and Harry Hole, although in the next book I hope Harry gets his act together a little bit more than he does in this one. There's only so much self destructive behavior any reader can tolerate.

Sachs is a great reader for Nesbo tales. I'd encourage you to buy the book. And just in case the October release ends the series, read it now.

Harry Hole is another detective full of flaws. He hides in drink and drugs, is asocial and ignores the rules, but he gets away with it because he gets the job done. Despite his flaws, or perhaps because of them, he is a good man and is likeable. He's the sort of man you would like to have as a friend, but would hope he doesn't show up to too many of your parties because you're never sure what he's going to do. So far, he's a fairly typical detective of the grittier sort of crime/mystery genre and doesn't particularly stand out from the crowd.

What makes The Leopard such a great book is the plot. This one is full of twists and turns, clues that help as well as hinder and characters who make you think they are something they are not. Although all the clues are there, it's difficult to see where the plot is headed. You just have to hang in and wait for the story to develop, which is fantastic in my book. Nesbo keeps you guessing. Sometimes you're right, sometimes you aren't, but that just adds to the interest.

The only warning I would issue is that the details are graphic and gory. If you've got a good imagination and have difficulty getting pictures out of your mind, you might want to give this one a miss, or at least avoid listening before bed. It's not a cosy sort of mystery; it's one that will make you wonder about the depth human beings can sink to in their desire to cause others pain. This, however, is what keeps the violence from being gratuitous. Nesbo isn't writing about violence just to draw in a crowd; he's just showcasing what many of us never think about living in a fairly safe and sane world as most Westerners do.

All in all an excellent read that I can recommend to anyone with a strong stomach.

The narration was also excellent. Robin Sachs does a great job and I would listen to more of him any time.

Epic crime novel.

Nesbo's insight into the workings of the criminal mind are accurate as any seasoned law enforcement officer can attest.

Sachs had all the characters nailed. I thought it was a flawless performance.

Harry Hole's bleak landscape contains an intimate knowledge of death and dying.

I had some difficulty with the Norwegian character's names, but this is small price for the payoff by the end of journey.

Jo Nesbo has written an excellent book that kept me guessing all the way. The translation is fluent and the narration is perfect. I was sorry when the book finished.

Highly, highly recommended!

Robin Sachs is the voice of Harry Hole. Harry is a brilliant detective who is a complete mess as a person. Who could ask for a better character. Keep up the good work Mr Nesbo!

I'm 5 hours away from finishing the book. Jo Nesbo is a brillant writer but I found this book had the same rhythm/feel of the Snowman. It gave you a handful of plausible suspects and then slowly dwindled away to the actual killer. The journey is great but it just didn't feel like anything new after reading the last book. There were also tons of references back to the Snowman case. I'm wondering if Nesbo's earlier work (Harry Hole pre serial killer cases) offers a break from this same plot set up.

... is getting a little silly, and distracting. Let's put it to rest.

1. In Norwegian the name "Hole" is pronounced "O" like in "pool" and "e" like in "ethnic".

I'm not making it up, this was Jo Nesbø's response to a direct question. The question is asked near the bottom of that page under "Frequently Asked Questions".

You can Google "Silent Letters in Norwegian" and learn that there are only four or five, and none of them is "e".

In Norwegian the name "Hole" is pronounced "OO-leh".

2. In English the word "Hole" is pronounced, well, like "hole", or "whole" if that helps.

People with foreign-language names often acquiesce to English-speaking people mispronouncing their name, especially if their name is the same as or similar to an English word or name. In America my friend Pettersson is the English "Peterson", in Sweden he is "Pedder-Shown". Even with common languages it gets muddled. In America my last name is like the North Carolina city of Durham, but in England it was like ... well, hard to write, but it sounded to me like "Dyeurrum". (To phone solicitors, however, it is always "Der Ham".)

Early on the producers at Audible.com decided to let Robin Sachs pronounce Harry's last name like the English "hole". Several books were produced and narrated by Robin Sachs using that pronunciation.

Robin Sachs is great. He is the voice of Harry Hole. But he does not pronounce Hole the same way a Norwegian would.

No problem, we're not Norwegian. And it never would have been a problem if the "The Bat" had not been translated and published. This is the first book written in the Harry Hole series, but the most recent in order of Audible.com production. In "The Bat" Harry has this exchange in an airport in Australia:

---

"The arrivals hall was crowded with travel reps and limousine drivers, holding up signs with names on, but not a Hole in sight. He was on the point of grabbing a taxi when a black man wearing light blue jeans and a Hawaiian shirt, and with an unusually broad nose and dark, curly hair ploughed a furrow between the signs and came striding toward him.

"'Mr Holy, I presume!' he declared triumphantly.

"Harry Hole considered his options. He had decided to spend the first days in Australia correcting the pronunciation of his surname so that he wouldn't be confused with apertures or orifices. Mr Holy however, was infinitely preferable."

---

Fine, this makes perfect sense in Norwegian, most of whom speak excellent English. Good enough to know what a hole is and how to pronounce "holy". So Mr. "OO-leh" is content to be called Mr. "Holy" as that is preferable to being called Mr. "Hole".

So I ask you, if Robin Sachs had narrated "The Bat", how would he have pronounced "Hole" subsequently? Like the English "hole"? Or, as Thor Knai (in "Nemesis") or Sean Barrett (in "The Bat") did, more or less as "OO-leh"?

None of that matters. Robin Sachs did not narrate "The Bat".

Thanks to his international fame, Jo Nesbø is undoubtedly aware by now that the difference in pronunciation is likely to cause a distraction and so is unlikely to write another passage like the one in "The Bat" that makes an issue of the pronunciation of "Hole". Robin Sachs can narrate every future Harry Hole novel and pronounce Hole as hole, and enjoy great success and popularity.

Unless Nesbø kills off Harry Hole ...

P.S. Jo Nesbø in the cited FAQ has a nice way of explaining the pronunciation of the ø (O with a backslash) in his last name. "... like the o in Peter Seller's pronunciation of 'bomb' in the Pink Panther movie." I'm not likely to forget that.