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Review: Blood on Snow
Feb. 28th, 2016 04:28 pmJo Nesbø's Blood on Snow: A Novel had a plot twist so surprising that I immediately re-read the book to see if I could see it coming (no), to see if I could figure out what really happened in some situations (yes for some, no for others), and to decide if I still liked the book (I think so) and the protagonist (probably).
It's mostly first-person narrative and the protagonist is a hit man. Early in the book he lists four jobs he's no good for, explains why, and then you realize he learned this the hard way. For example (I've added paragraph breaks for my reader(s) who has trouble without them):
I can't be used in robberies. I've read that more than half of all bank employees who experience a robbery end up with psychological problems afterwards, some of them for the rest of their lives.
I don't know why, but the old man who was behind the counter of the post office when we went in was in a big hurry to develop psychological problems. He fell to pieces just because the barrel of my shotgun was pointed in his general direction, apparently. I saw in the paper the next day that he was suffering from psychological problems. Not much of a diagnosis, but either way, if there's one thing you don't want, it's psychological problems.
So I went to visit him in hospital. Obviously he didn't recognize me--I'd been wearing a Santa Claus mask in the post office. (It was the perfect disguise. No one gave a second glance at three lads in Santa Claus outfits carrying sacks as they ran out of post office in the middle of the Christmas shopping crowds.)
I stopped in the doorway to the ward and looked at the old man. He was reading Class Struggle, the Communist newspaper. Not that I've got anything against Communists as individuals. Okay, maybe I have. But I don't want to have anything to against them as individuals, I just think they're wrong. So I felt a bit guilty when I realised that I felt a lot better because the guy was reading Class Struggle. But obviously there's a big difference between feeling a bit guilty and a lot guilty. And like I said, I felt a lot better.
But I stopped doing robberies. After all, here was no guarantee the next one would be a Communist.
I can't help liking that guy. And like in this excerpt, he keeps surprising me. It's certainly interesting to follow him around in his daily life. But he has problems. Too many, really, in spite of his efforts, conscious and subconscious.
The book is set in Norway. The fishing industry is relevant to the story. It's mostly in Oslo but we also see that Svalbard is relevant. Svalbard is a set of islands in the far North where both Norway and Russia have rights to coal. (Weird, eh? Norway is the western-most part of northern Europe and Russia extends to the easternmost part of Eurasia, but in the north, Norway and Russia share a border.)
I'm going to recommend this as a really good book. Powerful even. But not universally likeable. There is violence, as you might guess, but not just shooting violence. The ending provides closure, but I wished for a better ending, and then felt weak and maybe wrong-headed for wishing that for various spoiler-y reasons.
I have mixed feelings about the book. So I don't know if I want to own it. It's in the local library, so I can probably re-read it whenever I want anyway. We'll just see if that happens or not.
It's mostly first-person narrative and the protagonist is a hit man. Early in the book he lists four jobs he's no good for, explains why, and then you realize he learned this the hard way. For example (I've added paragraph breaks for my reader(s) who has trouble without them):
I can't be used in robberies. I've read that more than half of all bank employees who experience a robbery end up with psychological problems afterwards, some of them for the rest of their lives.
I don't know why, but the old man who was behind the counter of the post office when we went in was in a big hurry to develop psychological problems. He fell to pieces just because the barrel of my shotgun was pointed in his general direction, apparently. I saw in the paper the next day that he was suffering from psychological problems. Not much of a diagnosis, but either way, if there's one thing you don't want, it's psychological problems.
So I went to visit him in hospital. Obviously he didn't recognize me--I'd been wearing a Santa Claus mask in the post office. (It was the perfect disguise. No one gave a second glance at three lads in Santa Claus outfits carrying sacks as they ran out of post office in the middle of the Christmas shopping crowds.)
I stopped in the doorway to the ward and looked at the old man. He was reading Class Struggle, the Communist newspaper. Not that I've got anything against Communists as individuals. Okay, maybe I have. But I don't want to have anything to against them as individuals, I just think they're wrong. So I felt a bit guilty when I realised that I felt a lot better because the guy was reading Class Struggle. But obviously there's a big difference between feeling a bit guilty and a lot guilty. And like I said, I felt a lot better.
But I stopped doing robberies. After all, here was no guarantee the next one would be a Communist.
I can't help liking that guy. And like in this excerpt, he keeps surprising me. It's certainly interesting to follow him around in his daily life. But he has problems. Too many, really, in spite of his efforts, conscious and subconscious.
The book is set in Norway. The fishing industry is relevant to the story. It's mostly in Oslo but we also see that Svalbard is relevant. Svalbard is a set of islands in the far North where both Norway and Russia have rights to coal. (Weird, eh? Norway is the western-most part of northern Europe and Russia extends to the easternmost part of Eurasia, but in the north, Norway and Russia share a border.)
I'm going to recommend this as a really good book. Powerful even. But not universally likeable. There is violence, as you might guess, but not just shooting violence. The ending provides closure, but I wished for a better ending, and then felt weak and maybe wrong-headed for wishing that for various spoiler-y reasons.
I have mixed feelings about the book. So I don't know if I want to own it. It's in the local library, so I can probably re-read it whenever I want anyway. We'll just see if that happens or not.