Publisher: Vintage
Published: April 6, 2016 (first published 2003)
Source: Personal copy
SUMMARY:
A young woman is murdered in her Oslo flat. One finger has been severed from her left hand, and behind her eyelid is secreted a tiny red diamond in the shape of a five-pointed star – a pentagram, the devil’s star.
Detective Harry Hole is assigned to the case with his long-time adversary Tom Waaler and initially wants no part in it. But Harry is already on notice to quit the force and is left with little alternative but to drag himself out of his alcoholic stupor and get to work.
A wave of similar murders is on the horizon. An emerging pattern suggests that Oslo has a serial killer on its hands, and the five-pointed devil’s star is key to solving the riddle.
***Short & Sweet Reviews are short, quick reviews. These will mainly be used for series books where I have already done full reviews on some of the earlier books or for books that I feel will suffice with a quick review. These will not be used for review requests or blog tours.
MY THOUGHTS:
Continuing my journey this year with one Harry Hole book a month and I’m loving it. I actually look forward to picking up these books each month – I definitely think this is the way to go when catching up with a series so as to not burn yourself out…I will have to keep this in mind with the other series I plan to catch up on.
I love how complex these books are as is Harry himself. While these books can be read as stand-alones, I really think to get the most out of them, you definitely want to read at least the previous two books to really understand where Harry is coming from with his animosity towards Waaler. It’s almost as if these three books are a sub-trilogy within the larger series and let me just say, what a conclusion to that story line!
That being said, the self-contained case that this book focuses was quite fascinating and made for such a gripping read. Give me serial killers all day long and I’m a happy reader. On top of that, we see Harry struggle internally to control his demons – this is what makes him such a dynamic character.
This book is full of twists and turns and plenty of red herrings. I was completely caught up in it and did not want to put it down once I started reading it. These books aren’t short by any means, but once you get into the story, they move fast. I’m so eager to get to next month’s book and continue my Nesbo journey!
Books in this series:
- The Bat
- Cockroaches
- The Redbreast
- Nemesis
- The Devil’s Star
- The Redeemer
- The Snowman
- The Leopard
- Phantom
- Police
- The Thirst
- Knife
