Nemesis
4/5
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About this audiobook
“Nesbø’s storytelling abilities are incomparable. Nemesis is crime novel as art form and great entertainment.” —USA Today
Detective Harry Hole must use his maverick methods once again as he investigates a slew of brutal bank robberies and the suspicious suicide of a female artist in this clever and harrowing installment in the Harry Hole series from the author of The Snowman.
Captured on closed-circuit television: A man walks into an Oslo bank, puts a gun to a cashier's head, and tells her to count to twenty-five. When he doesn't get his money fast enough, he pulls the trigger. The young woman dies—and two million Norwegian kroner disappear without a trace.
After a drunken evening with former girlfriend Anna Bethsen, Police Detective Harry Hole wakes up at home with a headache, no cell phone, and no memory of the past twelve hours. The same day, Anna is found shot dead in her bedroom, making Hole a prime suspect in the investigation led by his hated adversary, Tom Waaler. Meanwhile, the bank robberies continue with unparalleled savagery, sending rogue detective Hole from the streets of Oslo to steaming Brazil in a race to close two cases and clear his name. But Waaler isn't finished with his longtime nemesis quite yet.
The second Harry Hole novel to be released in America—following the critically acclaimed publication of The Redbird—Nemesis is a superb and surprising nail-biter that places Jo Nesbø in the company of Lawrence Block, Ian Rankin, Michael Connelly, and other top masters of crime fiction. Nesbø has already received the Glass Key Award and the Booksellers’ Prize, Norway’s most prestigious literary awards. Nemesis is proof that there are certainly more honors in this extraordinary writer's future.
Editor's Note
Uncatchable bank robber...
An uncatchable bank robber and a mysterious suicide form the heart of this complex thriller from one of the masters of Scandinavian crime fiction. Nesbø’s wild twists will keep you guessing until the final pages.
Jo Nesbo
A musician, songwriter, and economist, Jo Nesbø is also one of Europe’s most acclaimed crime writers, and is the winner of the Glass Key Award, northern Europe’s most prestigious crime-fiction prize, for his first novel featuring Police Detective Harry Hole. Nesbø lives in Oslo.
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Reviews for Nemesis
121 ratings77 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5After reading the 4th of the Harry Hole series, I began to realize that this series is even better than the all-known Millennium trilogy. For the slightly stereotypical but still ingeniously contrived detective this time it's personal. While investigating the case of a serial bankrobber-killer, someone tries to implicate him a murder case.
2 people found this helpful
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5More twists and turns than the Tour de France, plus a writer who offers humour, insight and moral commentary in just enough dose to feel like I learned or pondered something worthwhile. Crime writing of the first order.
2 people found this helpful
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Nesbø’s writes characters. His men act out their faults on every page. His women mostly die. But, you do not read Nesbø for the people. He’s a plot man.
He starts off racehorse-style, running three plots side by side: dead banklady Stine, dead lover Anna, and dead policewoman Laura. Two of the plots gallop along; the third is a dark horse poking up her long-deceased head every fifty pages or so.
Then Nesbø’s gets tricky. The Inspector solves the murders, neat and tidy, but neatness is illusion. Norwegian crime has layers of evil and the Inspector keeps falling through holes, like a hard-boiled, hard-drinking Alice chasing after a gun-toting rabbit.
The twists get tiresome after a while. Nesbø’s pulls the rug out from under you one too many times. But you go on. You must see how it turned out even if it is 2AM.2 people found this helpful
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A gritty thriller with an existential, alcoholic detective and some worthy musings on the similarities between vengeance and what we talk about when we talk about justice. "Nemesis, the goddess of justice and vengeance." "Which the Romans pinched off the Greeks...They kept the scales, changed the whip for a sword, bound her eyes and called her Justitia...Blind justice. Cold-blooded vengeance. Our civilization rests in her hands. Isn't she beautiful?"
Well...isn't she?1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In this fourth Harry Hole-novel, Nesbø continues to show what a great story-teller he is and that he has really figured out his main character thoroughly. The stakes are as high as can be since it's obvious that there is a huge conspiracy surrounding the case and Hole is put into an impossible situation, made worse by his arch-nemesis Waaler. I love that the reader know so much more about what is going on than Hole himself does - it makes for quite a riveting reading. Looking forward to seeing how it all turns out in The Devil's Star/Djävulsstjärnan.
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nemesis is the fourth novel by Jo Nesbø to feature Inspector Harry Hole, alcoholic loner and excellent detective. In Nemesis, Harry meets up with an old flame and wakes up with a giant gap in his memory and a dead former girlfriend. Add to that a particularly violent bank robbery, an Albanian Gypsy convict with a liking for Sun Tzu, an overly affectionate Rottweiler and Harry's old nemesis, Inspector Tom Waaler, and a new sidekick who has a photographic memory for faces and you get quite a wild ride of a novel. Though not quite as good as The Redbreast, Nemesis is still engrossing and well worth a read!
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5An intricate plot with surprising developments that makes this story an interesting read. The characters are expertly drawn and the narrative is well-paced. Nesbo's plots are intriguing and I look forward to the next one!
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Harry Hole? Not my favorite detective, but I like the books nonetheless. If I could give half stars, I've give him 3.5.
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I love the mystery but it Julia just both confusing and long as the author ties up everything. This is only my second book from Nesbit and it was thankfully shorter but still I I felt too many characters and their individual stories which can become confusing. Perhaps these are seeds for future stories but all tidied at the end?
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nemesis is like a race but imagine the finish line being move every time a runner approach. That's how it was like reading Nemesis. It was an intricate mystery that never ended until it does and even that "ending" is a bit vague and melacholy.
Det. Harry Hole is investigating a bank robbery that ends in the murder of one of the bank employees. This puts him face to face with Det. Tom Waaler, the dirty cop involved in the murder of Harry's former partner, Ellen. Hole also gets a new partner who has an interesting talent: she can remember every face she has ever seen.
On the personal front, Hole's lady love, Raquel, is in Moscow in danger of losing custody of her son Oleg and a former love, Anna Bethsen, contacts him for dinner. This is when things gets interesting. When Hole wakes up the next day, he's nauseous and has gaps in his memory. He thinks he's been drinking again. He's called to investigate a suspected suicide: Anna's. Except something is not quite right...
Nemesis was really good. The mystery was complex but it really connected beautifully. These Scandinavian mysteries are dark and twisted and this novel was no exception. Sometimes I wished Hole made better choices and it's frustrating but it makes the narrative worth reading to the end. Jo Nesbø does a great job creating atmosphere. I could feel the cold and loneliness of Norway.1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Not as thrilling/harrowing as his later Hole books, this is still very exciting with almost too many twists. Nice atmosphere of Norway and Brazil.
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This is the first novel I have read by this prolific Scandinavian author. It was comforting in a way to encounter Norwegian detective Harry Hole – a man with a troubled love life, alcoholic tendencies, an unconventional detecting style and razor sharp instincts for personal survival, and think....now who does he remind me of? Ah yes – just about every other fictional detective, irrespective of nationality! It’s a case of strap yourself in for a bumpy ride – the story takes off immediately and never lets up, the central case being solved any number of times before a hard and fast solution is settled on. A fast and furious chase takes us to far flung locations and includes the sort of film-friendly moments (“Follow that skip”) that invite an inevitable celluloid version sooner or later. I guessed whodunit in the case of the dead girlfriend (modest cough) – it seemed obvious right from the start, but the plot’s twists and turns had me convinced I was wrong for much of the book. A fun, exciting and varied read that likes to tease the reader. It’s crime fiction that plays by the established rules, but in a good way.
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Chaos. Nearly gave it 4 stars, maybe I should have done. I delighted in the way the solution changed and changed and changed. Each time seeming plausible but turning out wrong. Being plausible is not enough so let's hope the truth was the truth by the end. Moved the running sub plot along gently as well so I shall keep reading in the right order.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Unlike a zebra in a cow barn, Harry Hole is a detective that stands out in a crowd. Norwegian author Jo Nesbo’s style has you drawn into the story before you even know what is happening. His characters struggle with life, relationships and personnel downfalls making all very believable. The plot is deceptively simple with twist and turns. The action has its readers in Oslo, Norway to Brazil as Harry follows the trail to capture the criminal. This mystery book will have you guessing all the way and in the end hungry for more.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Re-read after watching the travesty that was the "Marple" TV adapataion (which seems to have been written by someone who read a brief summary the plot and had not paid attention in either history or RE classes at school). It is a much better book, Miss Marple, at the behest of a recently dead acquaintance is sent on a coach tour with instructions to right a wrong, to see justice done, in fact to once again become Nemesis in a pink fluffy shawl. Excellent.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Lately I've been reading a fair amount of Scandinavian crime fiction. This one like the others is very interesting. Fast paced interesting crime, dark. My only gripe on this book is that the author may have tried to cram to many mysteries into one book. I'll read more of his work and see if it becomes clearer.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Took three books but Nesbo had nailed it now.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Rafiel leaves Miss Marple a mystery in his will. Two mysteries, in fact, since she must figure out what the mysery is first! Without knowing any details, she must undertake to correct an injustice.This novel meanders through coach tours, English gardens and village life before arriving at the core of the mystery.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Strong, but not as good as the Leopard. I am all askew in this series, so need to get a handle on the order of the series.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nemesis is in part a meditation on revenge and retribution. As Norwegian Detective Harry Hole says to a fellow police officer, "Revenge and retribution. That’s the driving force for the midget who was bullied at school and later became a multi-millionaire, and the bank robber who thinks he has been short-changed by society. And look at us. Society’s burning revenge disguised as cold, rational retribution – that’s our profession, isn’t it.”Indeed, as Harry discovers, it was the Greek goddess named Nemesis who was the goddess of revenge, an act considered to be punishment by some, but implacable justice by others. The imposition of revenge in both its senses is the main theme of this book.The story concerns a string of bank robberies in Oslo including a murder during one of them, committed by an expert in the elimination of any clues. Some additional murders seem related, if by nothing else than by the unusual choice of guns used to commit them. When Harry Hole is on a case, nothing is predictable, and the story feels like a wild ride to an unexpected conclusion. And yet, when you think back on it, the crimes are only a vehicle for the character developments, even though they sneak up on you behind the excitement of the chase.Discussion: This is book two in the Detective Harry Hole series that have been translated (the two earliest books have not been translated), which English readers were, prior to this year, forced to read in order of translation rather than in the logical progression written by the author. As much as I hated reading the out of order, I thought this book was the best of all of them, so it worked out fine for me in the end.Harry Hole is a detective either loved or loathed by his co-workers. Fortunately, his boss, Bjarne Moller, is one of Harry’s fans, even though he finds Harry to be an “alcoholic obstreperous, stubborn bastard.” He considers Harry a troublemaker and an arrogant bullhead, but one of his best investigators. It’s a cost-benefit ratio with which Moller grudgingly abides.Harry is not thought of as blatantly handsome, but he seems to exude a great deal of sex appeal, and women in these books quickly come to overlook Harry's other lapses.It is in this book that we get to know most of the other “regulars” in the series as well. We meet Beate Lonn, a fellow officer who has a knack for facial recognition, and with whom Harry immediately bonds. We learn of the growing interest in Beate shown by Harry’s officemate, Halverson, and the growing treachery of another of Harry’s colleagues, Tom Waaler. And we see Harry’s struggles to stay in a monogamous relationship with his new love Rakel, currently in Russia fighting for custody of her young son Oleg. All of these plot strands will reappear in later books, and it was fun, illuminating, and in some instances bittersweet to revisit these characters back in the beginning.Evaluation: Nesbo’s books are intelligent, complicated, and immensely rewarding as a reading experience. There isn’t one in the Harry Hole series I wouldn’t recommend. But if you have the opportunity to read them in order, it will be much less confusing, and there won’t be missing gaps in your appreciation of how events have turned out. I found Nemesis to be the least “standalone-esque” in this regard.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Harry Hole is a detective in Oslo in a follow-up to REDBREAST. There are several storylines running. Harry is still trying to find out who killed Ellen, his partner, a case his boss deems a time-waster since the alleged killer was already shot and killed. When a bank robbery takes the life of a teller, Beate Lonn, a video specialist who just graduated from the Police College, is called in to analyze the video. Meanwhile Anna Bethsen, an artist and old flame of Harry’s, calls him. Soon twelve hours of his life are missing and Anna is found dead in her apartment of an apparent suicide. But Harry’s cell phone is missing and he has a key to Anna’s apartment. He doesn’t believe Anna would commit suicide and when the M.E. finds a picture in her shoe, Harry feels it’s a clue to who might have killed Anna. Raskal, Anna’s uncle, is in prison and might hold a key to Anna’s past as well as some insight into the top bank robbers in Oslo. But any information from him isn’t free. Harry tries to cover his relationship with Anna but his archenemy on the force, Waaler, would love to bring Harry down a peg or two as Harry’s cover-up starts to unravel. These cases are all interlocked in Harry’s life, and although he still hasn’t solved Ellen’s murder, he is closing in on the real killer. Another top notch thriller and another series to be added to my “don’t miss” list.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Kinda dull, but still a good cozy mystery!
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Inspector Harry Hole is a recovering alcoholic. In this book, he is investigating a bank robbery where a worker in the bank is killed because another worker takes a few seconds too long to open the ATM that has just had its funds replenished. At the same time, he is also unofficially investigating the apparent killing of a women who he had a brief affair with, who had recently reappeared in his life. He was in her apartment the night she died and he has no recollection of the evening, which seems due to his falling off the wagon that night and blacking out. The death is ruled a suicide, but Harry thinks otherwise.The plot is intricately woven and the end results were not apparent to me much before they were revealed. I enjoyed the story and the plot twists, and all the extra characters that participate in the story.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I read this years ago but didn't remember the ending so purchased it and am almost finished (stayed up half the night trying to finish). If you are a fan of police procedurals with lots of plot twists you'd probably love this one. A little like the *Girl Who* series but without so much violence. Yes, there are deaths in this book but they are described in minimal detail so the reader has the facts but doesn't experince the fear or gore, only the need to figure things out.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Still a great series. I have a lot of fun reading these books, they always have memorable characters and plots. I love the character of Harry Hole, he is far from perfect but has realistic faults and worries. The people surrounding him are also always great, interesting people.
I am definitely glad I read the book and look forward to the others in the series. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Not as good as The Snowman
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Although this is a very late Christie, written well beyond her golden era, the opening chapter is a sheer delight in the author's classic style, as Miss Marple indulges in a long, discursive meditation on reading the newspapers.Miss M., despite being considerably aged and lame ("On'e feet are not what one would like feet to be," she silently laments as she contemplates her infirmities), she's still very sharp, if a bit more scattered, and able to spot a killer with ease. The careful reader will spot the truth fairly early on, but getting to Miss Marple's conclusions is interesting, if not as much fun as the earlier novels. One thing that makes this less than her best book is the absence of some of the characters from her standard books. A good relaxing read, but not her best book.If you like Christie, do give this a chance.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The second (I think) in the Harry Hole series. Nesbo continues to plot complex narratives set against a gloomy Oslo landscape. There are several ongoing crimes plus one from the first book that have to be resolved. While Harry's ongoing relationship with Rakel is backburned (while she is in Moscow resolving the custody issue of her son, he gets entangled with an old girlfriend who winds up dead (of course!). Harry is a prime suspect in her death and there are some who are happy to have him implicated. All the while he is trying to solve a grisly bank robbery/murder with a new associate, Beate (who has the uncanny, perhaps too convenient, ability to remember every face she's ever seen). Gypsies, brotherly rivalry, red herrings--lots to keep track of. Most is satisfactorily resolved; always good to keep a few loose threads to pick up in the next book....
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5All I ever seem to say about Agatha Christie books is that they're quite fun, now I've read a bundle of them. I suppose they're all the same, in some ways -- the clue-puzzle is always at the heart of it, not so much the characters. She has a nice touch with describing some characters and getting them just right, of course, and I really love the image of fluffy pink Miss Marple as Nemesis. And I liked Mr Rafiel and his posthumous quest: that was quite a nice plot touch. I got to like his character more, somehow, even though he was already dead.
The main downfall of these books, reading them now, is how dated the attitudes contained therein have become. Especially in this book, with the talk of mental illness and girls crying rape for no real reason, etc -- especially for me, given that my mother's a doctor and works for the police on rape cases, etc, and given that I'm quite irritated by the general perceptions of rape. But it's easy enough to ignore it, and remember that it was written in its moment, for me. - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I honestly didn't guess what was going on, but didn't feel that the author cheated by withholding information. Yay!