Take The Leopard (Harry Hole, #8) Articulated By Jo Nesbø Expressed As E-Text

am a biased fan, so my passion for this series among the steam of Nordic Noir hits has to be considered in that context, The figure of tough and sensitive Harry Hole, usually detective with the Olso major crimes squad, is up there in my pantheon of fictional crime fighters, which includes near the heavens Harry Bosch, Dave Robicheaux, Elvis Cole, Virgil Flowers, Jack Reacher, Walt Longmire, and Spenser.


At curtain rise, Harry is basically living under a rock in Hong Kong, The threats and damages experienced by his wife Rakel while he worked the Snowman serial murder case led her to split town, taking their son Oleg with her.
Harrys guilt and isolation eventually moved him to split, too, with the planned pitstop of Hong Kong becoming more of a permanent site of hiding, As a female detective Kaja from Oslo finds out when she is sent there to fetch him, he is living a marginal existence in a youth hostel with a growing addiction to opium and hiding out from a criminal gang who bought his debt gambling at the horse races.
Unless you have come to respect Harrys tenacity in police work and love him for his courage and loyalty to the deserving few, these sections will not warm your heart to him.


The urgency for the implausible step of the Oslo office to track him down in person comes from a new serial killer case in Norway.
His old boss Gunnar Hagen needs him badly to solve the case fast before media criticism of his division and public outcry over the extreme brutality of the deaths helps the new man at the federal security agency, Bellman, wangle designated responsibility for all murders out of the Ministry of Justice.
The potential demise of his old department is not what motivates Harry to return with Kaja its the news she shares about the impending death of his own father.
Eventually the puzzle of the case and the increasing body count from the killer that moves Harry back into action, And the competition between departments becomes less of a bore to Harry and the reader when Bellman begins carrying out dirty tricks and creative blackmail against Harry to get his way.
Eventually, the grisly murder of a female MP ups the pressure so much that he chooses to force Harry to work for him directly, Not to worry, as Harry has his ways of slipping this bridle and wreaking some payback,

I refrain from any details of the case itself and the line of promising suspects investigated, I can share some hints about the scope of the efforts, It will take Harry on a dangerous trip to the Republic of the Congo to find the origins of a bizarre weapon used in some of the murders, a fiendish device called “King Leopolds Apple”.
Another trip there later in the book will put him Another lead is the discovery that at least some of the victims were together one evening at a remote rude mountain lodge for crosscountry skiers.
One of Harrys hairiest brushes with death comes when an attempt to trap the killer there gets him, Kaya, and another officer buried in an avalanche, His extreme efforts to save their lives involves a terrible moral choice, and more scars to his sole, I can also reveal that Kaja makes a great partner for Harry and a burgeoning love interest, though not one to threaten his abiding goal to get Rakel back.


All in all, thisth entry of ten in the series is among the best of them, One could complain that it is too longpages, overly

complex, and too dependent on implausible elements and surprising turns of events, But for the most part, these aspects are par for the course, These books are popular despite such limitations, Harrys struggles against the evil ones among humanity and his compelling fight for selfrespect and loyalty to friends and family are what we crave, and his story plays out on a complex social canvas.
Norway, one of the most progressive showcases for an egalitarian society among nations, is shown to beset by the same major ills as the rest of the developed nationspeople falling through the cracks or oppressed by human greed, racism, discriminatory attitudes against immigrants, police corruption, child abuse, and the bad karma of the past of European colonialism abroad.
No wonder some twisted people emerge and our ongoing need for a courageous hero like Hole to bring them to justice by harnessing his special understanding of the dark side of human nature.
As with classic noir, it depends on your taste whether you will find the read uplifting as I do or depressing from the subjects and crimes the story dwells on.



Nesbo as posted on his Goodreads page, He seems to have lost his hairless, punkish look, In the past he had less hair For want of much description, I imaging Harry looks like this, In this electrifying new addition to Jo Nesbøs internationally acclaimed series, Harry Hole must confront the darkest demons in his cityand in himself,
 
Inspector Harry Hole has retreated to Hong Kong, escaping the trauma of his last case in squalid opium dens, when two young women are found dead in Oslo, both drowned in their own blood.
Media coverage quickly reaches a fever pitch, There are no clues, the police investigation is stalled, and Harrythe one man who might be able to helpcant be found, After he returns to Oslo, the killer strikes again, Harrys instincts take over, and nothing can keep him from the investigation, though there is little to go on.
Worse, he will soon come to understand that he is dealing with a psychopath who will put him to the test, both professionally and personally, as never before.
Dear Harry Hole:

Last time I heard from you, you lost the woman you loved, her son who called you Dad and your middle finger.
You quit Crime Squad for good, sulking from the trauma and devastation in your life caused chasing down that twisted Snowman, You moved to Hong Kong where you graduated at the top of your class from Jim Beam to heroin, No more serial killer hunts for you, Just smack, glass noodles and gambling on losing horses, The good life for someone who has given up on life,

Then this woman Kaja from Oslo Crime Squad shows up at you doorstep, pays your gambling debt and convinces you to come back to Oslo and chase down yet another Norwegian serial killer.
How many could Norway have and why are their killings so over the top gruesome What ever happened to just shooting them, Who knows and who cares, The fun is in the chase, You are one smooth operator Harry, Cool under pressure. You don't give a toss what your colleagues think of you or whether your boss throws you in jail, You have got to stop messing with the H Harry it makes you vulnerable,

You put together the clues peel back the layers to find the killer only to have more twist and surprises placed in your path, Nothing is ever straight forward in you life is it Harry You dodge department infighting, avalanches, and trial by fire, volcanoes, bullets and the bite of a very bad apple.
Don't mind the maggots.

Now you have faded in the sunset again back into your squalid corner of the world, But I know you will be back, There is always another nut job serial killer out there and who else can find them And you know Rakel and Oleg need you, Don't wait too long Harry,

Kisses,

C,