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A review by karieh13
Phantom by Jo Nesbø
4.0
I was so excited to start “Phantom”. As much of a train wreck as detective Harry Hole is – he is an incredibly interesting and compelling character. In the last year, I’ve inhaled all of the Jo Nesbo books I can get my hands on.
And since I can’t help but worry about Harry…the beginning of this book gave me hope. Harry comes back clean and sober…and seemingly ready to start some semblance of a normal life. But – turns out he’s back to deal with another nightmare case. A case that hits incredibly close to home.
What is left of Harry’s heart is with his ex Rakel and her son Oleg. The three of them have gone to the edge of hell and back – but their journey is not over. Harry comes back to try and save Oleg and to see what remains of the life they once had.
When he first sees Rakel again, “Harry felt a claw close around his heart and wrench it around. Her figure was the same: slim, erect. The face was the same: heart-shaped with dark-brown eyes and the broad mouth that liked to laugh so much. The hair was almost the same: long, though the color was perhaps a tad lighter. But the eyes were changed. They were the eyes of a hunted animal, widened, wild. But when they fell on Harry it was as if something had returned. Something of the person she had been. Of what they had been.”
What separates these books/the character of Harry Hole from the average thrillers are not the details (alcoholic, self-destructive detective…one man against the system…) but the depth that Nebo creates. Harry Hole may be like no one we’ve ever met – but he feels real. He could be a real, flawed, human person – one the reader cares about and can’t help rooting for.
“He could have been on a plane to Bangkok. But that was the point; he could have been on a plane to Bangkok now. He simply didn’t have the ability – it was a deficiency, an operating fault; his clubfoot was that he had never been able to tell himself he didn’t care, to forget, to clear out. He could drink, but he sobered up. He was undoubtedly a very damaged person.”
“Phantom” is not a story about Harry Hole turning his life around. In this book, he realizes that his life is so intertwined with that of Rakel and Oleg’s that there is no separating them. In this book, he goes to even darker places than he thought possible.
“Harry knew how this had to end. It was as inevitable as his return to Oslo. Just as he knew that the human need for order and cohesion meant he would manipulate his mind into seeing a kind of logic to it. Because the notion that everything is no more than cold chaos, that there is no meaning, is harder to bear than even the worst, though comprehensible, tragedy.”
Harry Hole is a character like no other – and his story is one I will always want to read – even as I am filled with frustration that I am able to change the endings.
And since I can’t help but worry about Harry…the beginning of this book gave me hope. Harry comes back clean and sober…and seemingly ready to start some semblance of a normal life. But – turns out he’s back to deal with another nightmare case. A case that hits incredibly close to home.
What is left of Harry’s heart is with his ex Rakel and her son Oleg. The three of them have gone to the edge of hell and back – but their journey is not over. Harry comes back to try and save Oleg and to see what remains of the life they once had.
When he first sees Rakel again, “Harry felt a claw close around his heart and wrench it around. Her figure was the same: slim, erect. The face was the same: heart-shaped with dark-brown eyes and the broad mouth that liked to laugh so much. The hair was almost the same: long, though the color was perhaps a tad lighter. But the eyes were changed. They were the eyes of a hunted animal, widened, wild. But when they fell on Harry it was as if something had returned. Something of the person she had been. Of what they had been.”
What separates these books/the character of Harry Hole from the average thrillers are not the details (alcoholic, self-destructive detective…one man against the system…) but the depth that Nebo creates. Harry Hole may be like no one we’ve ever met – but he feels real. He could be a real, flawed, human person – one the reader cares about and can’t help rooting for.
“He could have been on a plane to Bangkok. But that was the point; he could have been on a plane to Bangkok now. He simply didn’t have the ability – it was a deficiency, an operating fault; his clubfoot was that he had never been able to tell himself he didn’t care, to forget, to clear out. He could drink, but he sobered up. He was undoubtedly a very damaged person.”
“Phantom” is not a story about Harry Hole turning his life around. In this book, he realizes that his life is so intertwined with that of Rakel and Oleg’s that there is no separating them. In this book, he goes to even darker places than he thought possible.
“Harry knew how this had to end. It was as inevitable as his return to Oslo. Just as he knew that the human need for order and cohesion meant he would manipulate his mind into seeing a kind of logic to it. Because the notion that everything is no more than cold chaos, that there is no meaning, is harder to bear than even the worst, though comprehensible, tragedy.”
Harry Hole is a character like no other – and his story is one I will always want to read – even as I am filled with frustration that I am able to change the endings.