A review by earwicker
Blood on Snow by Jo Nesbø

3.0

Beautifully written, but half baked. Nesbø's concern in this book seems to be primarily poetic, despite a story that is also unflinchingly violent. Olav is a contract killer whose interior life is actually more interesting than the bullets flying around him, but the violence still takes center stage. The slow, meditative parts of the book are its best moments, but they are overtaken by the action, which is predictable, even plodding. Faulkner said that most novelists are failed short story writers, or in any case that novels are easier to write than short stories or poetry. I'm not sure why that is, but I get the feeling that if Blood on Snow were more fully developed it would be a better book.