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.
A fast, tight, darkly lyrical stand-alone novel that has at its center the perfectly sympathetic antihero: an Oslo contract killer who draws us into an unexpected meditation on death and love.
This is the story of Olav: an extremely talented “fixer” for one of Oslo’s most powerful crime bosses. But Olav is also an unusually complicated fixer. He has a capacity for love that is as far-reaching as is his gift for murder. He is our straightforward, calm-in-the-face-of-crisis narrator with a storyteller’s hypnotic knack for fantasy.
He has an “innate talent for subordination” but running through his veins is a “virus” born of the power over life and death. And while his latest job puts him at the pinnacle of his trade, it may be mutating into his greatest mistake. . . .
Like many thrillers, this is a fairy tale for adults--instead of kings and princesses, there are mob bosses, femme fatales and hired guns.
...Fans of Harry Hole will easily recognize Nesbo's singular narrative voice, and these pages turn as rapidly as in his other novels.
...Nesbo's much-heralded gifts are on display--using his ... eye for grisly, alarming details that slam home the horror of the evil that men do.
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