Anthony McIntyre ✒ In Midnight Sun Jo Nesbo follows through from Blood On Snow. So, the inimitable Harry Hole is absent. 



The principal character Jon Hansen is determined to escape Oslo, and so makes his way by bus to Finnmark at the northernmost tip of Norway – where “everything is South of here”. It is a remote plateau upon which the sun refuses to set and under which the Sami culture pulsates.

Jon ends up in the local community of Kåsund, where he immediately becomes Ulf, the name he pulled out of his head on meeting his first acquaintance when disembarking from the bus, Mattias. The village is much under the influence of a fundamentalist religious cult. It preaches the usual biblical hellfire and brimstone. An atheist, the remoteness and quaintness of the village appeals to Jon. It holds out the offer of the most propitious cover available, despite the religious bunkum, maybe even because of it: who after all might think of looking for an atheist among religious nutters?

The cover is what he is in need of most. A hitman who failed to hit, he is no longer the predator but the prey, being hunted by his former boss from Blood On Snow, the Fisherman. Although determined to escape he is up against a person as determined to kill him, a vicious gang boss who “always finds what he is looking for.” He should have stayed in the debt collecting and fixer line of criminal work in the nation's capital. He had messed up a contract killing and now those who hired his services are about to terminate the contract with extreme prejudice.

As a hit man, he can expect little in the way of sympathy but is fortunate to find it in the person of Knut, a ten year old who introduces him to his mother, Lea. Both are members of the community's religious cult. Lea allows him to stay in her husband's cabin and provides him with a rifle and ammunition. Lea’s circumstances are not as healthy as she might wish. Daughter of the local preacher, she should be the village vicar - just that the Church in Finnmark would never allow a lowly woman to attain such a lofty pulpit. Ulf falls for her but the husband is a local hood who has violently abused his wife.

Jon had also ridiculed Christianity: "thou shalt have no other gods before me. Every dictator’s command to his subjects, no doubt." He concluded much as Augustine of Hippo had more than 1600 years before him that some Christians were so stupid that they took the bible literally to the point of being a laughing stock. Edwin Poots is not a peculiar North of Ireland phenomenon: the type can be found everywhere. And as Christians do not like being mocked, this could be a source of potential tension.

Yet the Christian community is the only refuge available when the inevitable moment arrives in the form of human devils.

Like other stand alone novels by Nesbo, this is a work that did not meet with the same approval ratings as Harry Hole narratives. The plot is not as complicated but is probably easier to follow for that. At the end of a Hole book there is the temptation to revisit the plot just to put everything in its place. Not with the free standing works. Once finished there is no reflection, just satisfaction. Currently reading a much longer The Kingdom, it is to state the obvious to say that there is refreshing simplicity to following a well written uncomplicated plot.

While I love the Harry Hole series, in the wise words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, “every hero becomes a bore at last." So before letting it get to that stage I opt for the switch every so often.

A tale of redemption, revenge and remoteness, this is a book of such brevity that the bus journey made by Jon from Oslo to Finnmark would be more than enough time to read it in one go.


⏩Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre.

Midnight Sun

Anthony McIntyre ✒ In Midnight Sun Jo Nesbo follows through from Blood On Snow. So, the inimitable Harry Hole is absent. 



The principal character Jon Hansen is determined to escape Oslo, and so makes his way by bus to Finnmark at the northernmost tip of Norway – where “everything is South of here”. It is a remote plateau upon which the sun refuses to set and under which the Sami culture pulsates.

Jon ends up in the local community of Kåsund, where he immediately becomes Ulf, the name he pulled out of his head on meeting his first acquaintance when disembarking from the bus, Mattias. The village is much under the influence of a fundamentalist religious cult. It preaches the usual biblical hellfire and brimstone. An atheist, the remoteness and quaintness of the village appeals to Jon. It holds out the offer of the most propitious cover available, despite the religious bunkum, maybe even because of it: who after all might think of looking for an atheist among religious nutters?

The cover is what he is in need of most. A hitman who failed to hit, he is no longer the predator but the prey, being hunted by his former boss from Blood On Snow, the Fisherman. Although determined to escape he is up against a person as determined to kill him, a vicious gang boss who “always finds what he is looking for.” He should have stayed in the debt collecting and fixer line of criminal work in the nation's capital. He had messed up a contract killing and now those who hired his services are about to terminate the contract with extreme prejudice.

As a hit man, he can expect little in the way of sympathy but is fortunate to find it in the person of Knut, a ten year old who introduces him to his mother, Lea. Both are members of the community's religious cult. Lea allows him to stay in her husband's cabin and provides him with a rifle and ammunition. Lea’s circumstances are not as healthy as she might wish. Daughter of the local preacher, she should be the village vicar - just that the Church in Finnmark would never allow a lowly woman to attain such a lofty pulpit. Ulf falls for her but the husband is a local hood who has violently abused his wife.

Jon had also ridiculed Christianity: "thou shalt have no other gods before me. Every dictator’s command to his subjects, no doubt." He concluded much as Augustine of Hippo had more than 1600 years before him that some Christians were so stupid that they took the bible literally to the point of being a laughing stock. Edwin Poots is not a peculiar North of Ireland phenomenon: the type can be found everywhere. And as Christians do not like being mocked, this could be a source of potential tension.

Yet the Christian community is the only refuge available when the inevitable moment arrives in the form of human devils.

Like other stand alone novels by Nesbo, this is a work that did not meet with the same approval ratings as Harry Hole narratives. The plot is not as complicated but is probably easier to follow for that. At the end of a Hole book there is the temptation to revisit the plot just to put everything in its place. Not with the free standing works. Once finished there is no reflection, just satisfaction. Currently reading a much longer The Kingdom, it is to state the obvious to say that there is refreshing simplicity to following a well written uncomplicated plot.

While I love the Harry Hole series, in the wise words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, “every hero becomes a bore at last." So before letting it get to that stage I opt for the switch every so often.

A tale of redemption, revenge and remoteness, this is a book of such brevity that the bus journey made by Jon from Oslo to Finnmark would be more than enough time to read it in one go.


⏩Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre.

2 comments:

  1. Will look out for this, am a big fan of Jo Nesbo. Can I recommend another of his stand alone tales, namely 'Jackpot'. I must confess to not having read the book yet, but the film is outstanding. Well worth a watch.

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    1. I never heard of Jackpot. I googled it and it is on DVD and is based on a Jo Nesbo story. I wonder if it was a screen play written specifically for the movie. I have read about 8 in the Harry Hole series and four of the stand alone ones - have not been disappointed yet.

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