Blood on Snow: A novel - Softcover

Nesbo, Jo

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0345814460 ISBN 13: 9780345814463

Publisher: Vintage Canada, 2016

Synopsis

From the internationally acclaimed author of the Harry Hole novels--a new, electrifying stand-alone thriller set in Oslo in the 1970s: the story of an unusually complicated contract killer--the perfectly sympathetic antihero--that is, as well, an edgy, almost lyrical meditation on death and love.

Olav lives the lonely life of a fixer.

When you 'fix' people for a living - terminally - it's hard to get close to anyone.

Now he's finally met the woman of his dreams.

But there are two problems.

She's his boss's wife.

And Olav's just been hired to kill her.

About this title

About the Author

Jo Nesbø is a musician, songwriter, economist, as well as a writer. His Harry Hole novels include The Redeemer, The Snowman, The Leopard, and Phantom, and he is also the author of several stand-alone novels and the Doctor Proctor series of children's books. He is the recipient of numerous awards including the Glass Key for best Nordic crime novel.

Review

“[Q]uick and darkly funny and very noir.” —Mark Lawson
 
“Jo Nesbo is considered the king of Scandi crime fiction and this short page-turner shows why. . . . Delivered with simplistic brevity, it will wake you up from a siesta.” —Natalia Deane and Sally Newall, The Independent
 
“Blood on Snow gets your heart racing from the first page.” —Elizabeth Humphrey, San Francisco Book Review
 
“It’s all ever so noiry and pulpy: Nesbo’s gorgeously rendered images of snow, and of the titular blood on snow . . . are crying out to be filmed.” —Alison Flood, The Guardian
 
“[A] jewel. . . . Nesbo tells this small but ¬razor-sharp story with precision and understated eloquence.” —Booklist (starred review)
 
“From its stunning opening line . . . to its surprising and poetic ending, Jo Nesbo’s latest novel is a dream. To call Blood on Snow a crime novel would be an immense understatement. . . . [I]t’s also a beautiful, complicated and skillfully rendered love story. . . .  [Blood on Snow] packs an emotional punch with its gorgeous prose and a taut plot.” —Kim Curtis, The Associated Press
 
“Nesbo’s much-heralded gifts are on display—using his talent for conjuring the chilly Munch-like atmospherics of Oslo in the winter and his eye for grisly, alarming details that slam home the horror of the evil that men do.” —Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
 
“[T]he compactness of this stand-alone story gives it the quick-strike force of an icicle to the heart.” —Vulture
 
“Versatile Nesbø . . . switches gears yet again in this chilly whisper of a novella. . . . A Nordic noir updating of James M. Cain’s Love’s Lovely Counterfeit (1942) with an equally sweet-natured killer at its improbably soft center.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Reading this won’t make you afraid of the dark, but the risk of laughing is imminent. While many of the plot twists are so faithful to the genre that they almost foreshadow themselves, there are also some real subtle gems along the way. The grand finale is gory and crazy and, not least, hilariously funny—a scene the Cohen brothers would probably kill to adapt to film.” —Vårt Land
 
“Blood on Snow is a poetically framed, unpretentious crime story that is deeper than it seems. . . . The plot and the prose flow effortlessly. The author bubbles with the joy of storytelling, which is infectious for the reader. Some devoted readers of Nesbo may feel cheated and think that this is too easy and too straightforward, that the story ends before it has even properly begun. But the tale about the hit man in love also has qualities that are hard to find in a traditional Nesbo crime novel. The poetic frame—which the title Blood on Snow cements—has a subdued beauty for all its simplicity, a nod at life as it could have been.” —Adresseavisen
 
“The novel shows once again why Jo Nesbo is Scandinavia’s leading crime writer. He masters not only plot and action, but literary quality as well. . . . This little novel is a great piece of craftsmanship that is overflowing with the writer’s joy at telling a fine and thrilling story, and shows that Nesbo is continuing to soar to new heights—even without Harry Hole.” —Tvedestrandsposten
 
“Nesbo is really playing with genre conventions and tall tales here. This book is more compact than his previous crime novels and the prose more carefully crafted.” —Klassekampen
 
“Blood on Snow is an amusing addition to Nesbo’s authorship. I think he’s been grinning along the way, at both surprising twists and turns and at descriptions.” —Varden
 
“[A] play on literary genres and conventions that we crime geeks cannot help but rejoice in.” —Dagens Næringsliv

About this edition

• Publisher: Vintage Canada
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 0345814460
• ISBN 13: 9780345814463
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 192