Blood on Snow

Reviews

Deserves to be a smash... A perfectly pitched thriller [An] incendiary cocktail of murder, revenge and a hitman with multiple problems Nesbo is in bracing form...gripping Striking in its simplicity… Nesbo is a writer at the top of his game who continues to amaze in new and confounding ways The undisputed king of Scandinavian crime fiction...I am so used to the energetic plot twists, fiendish violence and addictive verbosity of Nesbo’s writing that Blood on Snow, with its simplicity, brevity and unlikely poetry, comes as a welcome antidote. It is set in the 1970s, an era of increasing fascination to Nesbo, and has a first-person narrative that provides a window into its protagonist’s lonely, tortured soul Pure, bloody, cold, atmospheric and engaging noir A fine novel ...suspenseful. Blood on Snow has a lot of that romanticised masculinity one finds in for example mafia movies... it’s one of the contributing factors in making the best passages in this novel truly wonderful literature. If I were to highlight one particular quality, it would have to be how beautifully Nesbø has drawn up his main character and how effective Olav’s narrative voice is. The story echoes many sources, for example mob films, Spaghetti Westerns, hard-boiled crime and social melodrama...The end, especially, is nothing less than a stylistic masterclass Jo Nesbø’s unstoppable joy of storytelling has found a new avenue Blood on Snow is Nesbø’s own “pulp fiction”, in two senses. It’s both a tribute to the simple, hard-boiled narrative style from the old days, but there are also parallels with Quentin Tarantino films... Nesbo’s joy of telling stories doesn't leave anything to wish for. As a tribute to the genre, Blood on Snow also succeeds in reminding us that many of these role models had literary qualities that should not be underestimated. Expand reviews