I had been warned, even before starting the book that it would be boring. But, like all those dull drab movies that, despite your friends blasting it to oblivion in their reviews, you still take a peek at it, out of curiosity, I wanted to have a go at this book and also more of OCD to complete the series. With luck, I’ve been stumbling upon the series in almost the right sequence and the more I read it the more I am sure that, it has all the ingredients of a good action drama series. Probably it is already in Norway, maybe.
Thirst, begins as a proper continuation to Police. It has a brutal murder, with the setup resembling a vampire attack, to start with that sets the ball rolling for more such similar murders to follow. Like all drama series, that have matured into their 5th season, the hero introduction, happens pretty late. Kat Bratt, who started off as a psycho lady, hell bent on avenging her dad in SNOWMAN, who is later touted as a computer Wizard in subsequent novels, is shown taking over Harry’s role as lead detective. There are some typical glass ceiling related references and situations and finally Harry does gets dragged into the muddle, this time under threat from the very police chief, who detests Harry on all the previous novels. The cliffhanger ending from POLICE, has a nauseating continuance and the villain is all glee in his acts of violence. There are way too much of discussion and debate around vampirism that would put anyone to sleep, despite them having caffeine as their blood group. After the usual Jim Beam whiskey and Camel sticks, it’s the coffee machine that is a constant across all the novels. The villain is revealed much early in the book, rather he reveals about himself and much early towards the close of the book, the villain gets killed. To stick to the pattern of throwing in twists, there are several neck breaking twists that prolong the climax by almost 75 pages. For those who are regulars of Nesbo, Harry hole series, they know for sure that, even in case of a nuclear attack, Harry would never die, for its his series, for god’s sake. So all those pages, not mentioning who survived and who shot what/whom were needless and could’ve been made much simpler. Guess, this may not been the end of the series after all with the villain’s dad, preparing himself for an assault on Harry towards the end that sets the story up for the next installment. Other than the odd reasoning behind the Title, the translation is much better as compared to some of the previous instances.
Gils verdict – Thirst is not the best of the lot, yet not as bad either. For those who are binge reading Nesbo, it might feel like a natural extension and more like comic book supervillains, who trouble the superhero only to be vanquished in the end. I’ve started with BAT, which is supposedly the first book of the series and had I started with that one, wouldn’t quite have imagined the change in characterization for Harry. More to follow.
Thirst, begins as a proper continuation to Police. It has a brutal murder, with the setup resembling a vampire attack, to start with that sets the ball rolling for more such similar murders to follow. Like all drama series, that have matured into their 5th season, the hero introduction, happens pretty late. Kat Bratt, who started off as a psycho lady, hell bent on avenging her dad in SNOWMAN, who is later touted as a computer Wizard in subsequent novels, is shown taking over Harry’s role as lead detective. There are some typical glass ceiling related references and situations and finally Harry does gets dragged into the muddle, this time under threat from the very police chief, who detests Harry on all the previous novels. The cliffhanger ending from POLICE, has a nauseating continuance and the villain is all glee in his acts of violence. There are way too much of discussion and debate around vampirism that would put anyone to sleep, despite them having caffeine as their blood group. After the usual Jim Beam whiskey and Camel sticks, it’s the coffee machine that is a constant across all the novels. The villain is revealed much early in the book, rather he reveals about himself and much early towards the close of the book, the villain gets killed. To stick to the pattern of throwing in twists, there are several neck breaking twists that prolong the climax by almost 75 pages. For those who are regulars of Nesbo, Harry hole series, they know for sure that, even in case of a nuclear attack, Harry would never die, for its his series, for god’s sake. So all those pages, not mentioning who survived and who shot what/whom were needless and could’ve been made much simpler. Guess, this may not been the end of the series after all with the villain’s dad, preparing himself for an assault on Harry towards the end that sets the story up for the next installment. Other than the odd reasoning behind the Title, the translation is much better as compared to some of the previous instances.
Gils verdict – Thirst is not the best of the lot, yet not as bad either. For those who are binge reading Nesbo, it might feel like a natural extension and more like comic book supervillains, who trouble the superhero only to be vanquished in the end. I’ve started with BAT, which is supposedly the first book of the series and had I started with that one, wouldn’t quite have imagined the change in characterization for Harry. More to follow.
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