Cockroaches - Jo Nesbo

The second Harry Hole thriller, originally published in 1998 but only translated into English last year.  At last the UK publishing strategy becomes clear.  They published Nesbo to cash in on Nordic Noir, following the huge success of Henning Mankell, but there was a problem with the Hole series - the first two, Cockroaches and the sub-standard Bat, are set in the very un-Scandinavian Thailand and Australia respectively.  So they started with the Oslo-set Redbreast and stuck to the sequence until Nesbo was established as the most popular of all the Nordic crime writers.

Cockroaches is much better than the disappointing Bat.  Nesbo really gets into his stride with the second outing for Harry.  A Norwegian diplomat has been murdered in a seedy motel outside Bangkok.  There are rumours of paedophilia.  Send in Harry Hole, ostensibly because he made his name with the Australian case but really because---  As always with Nesbo's intricately crafted plots, it's easy to give too much away.

The characters are brilliant - the American female inspector of Thai police with alopecia, the ageing black ops agent, the financial whizz kid and the budding paralympian diver who flirts outrageously with Harry.

Forget episode one - this a series best started with episode two.

The Bat - Jo Nesbo

This is the first Harry Hole, published in Norway as far back as 1997 but not translated into English until 2012.  When I first learnt The Bat existed, I wondered why hadn't they brought it out in America and the UK?  Having read it, I know why.  It isn't as good as whatever they started the English run with.

It's OK - better than OK and a good bit better than most other Nordic Noir thrillers that have been hurriedly published in the wake of Nesbo's success - but it is nowhere near as good as books like The Redeemer and The Leopard.  It is a million miles from the mighty Headhunters.  Frankly, I wish they hadn't bothered.

For starters, it isn't Nordic, it's Aussie with a guest Nord.  Harry has been flown off to the southern hemisphere after a minor Norwegian TV personality is murdered in Sydney.  This in itself is wholly implausible.  It quickly becomes irritating that the Australians can't pronounce Hole the Norwegian way and take to calling him Harry Holy.  Even Nesbo can't make a joke as thin as that last 374 pages.  There are long, tedious tracts of Aboriginal folklore which have no connection with the story and are there to show off Nesbo's research.  The red herring might as well wear a red herring hat it is so obvious he's not the killer and the real bad guy can be arrived at by the Agatha Christie method (i.e. who do we think is least likely to have done it?)  I finished the book less than twelve hours ago and have already forgotten why he did it.

For all that, the story moves along at an engaging pace, you get a lot of Harry's backstory, and Nesbo is always worth reading.  I believe there's another early Harry still to be translated.  I'd like to say I'll give it a miss, but I probably won't.