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A review by kne
Blood on Snow by Jo Nesbø
3.0
I'm very curious to know why Nesbø originally wrote this under a pseudonym. Did he want to see if he could still sell books without his own name? Even though I've been known to read some Scandinavian crime besides his, I probably wouldn't have picked this one up because of a few key phrases in the blurb that aren't my usual fare - "fixer" and "1970s." But I'm glad I did. For one thing, it didn't feel very 1970s to me - it could have been Harry Hole's Oslo. Except for the lack of cell phones (which would have made the plot harder to work), it could have been modern Oslo. And though it was about a fixer, it wasn't nearly as graphic as [b:Headhunters|11777020|Headhunters|Jo Nesbø|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1320551831s/11777020.jpg|3609998], which was a major relief.
Even if I had read it under the pseudonym, I might have wondered if it was Jo's work. It's hard to ignore the lyrical quality of his writing, particularly when he's describing something beautiful and awful, like the titular blood on snow. Really stunning descriptions. And this was a very short novel, a novella almost, yet he packed so much character development into so few pages. Olav was great. Despite his career choice (killing people for money), it's hard not to like him. And the reader gets to know his history and his personality better than you'd expect in such a short work. I smiled every time the dyslexic book lover said something intelligent followed by "But what do I know?"
Overall, a good, well-written story with several interesting twists and turns.
The fine print: received ARC from Edelweiss.
Even if I had read it under the pseudonym, I might have wondered if it was Jo's work. It's hard to ignore the lyrical quality of his writing, particularly when he's describing something beautiful and awful, like the titular blood on snow. Really stunning descriptions. And this was a very short novel, a novella almost, yet he packed so much character development into so few pages. Olav was great. Despite his career choice (killing people for money), it's hard not to like him. And the reader gets to know his history and his personality better than you'd expect in such a short work. I smiled every time the dyslexic book lover said something intelligent followed by "But what do I know?"
Overall, a good, well-written story with several interesting twists and turns.
The fine print: received ARC from Edelweiss.