An expertly plotted, compelling and gripping white-knuckle ride… Nesbo deserves to be crowned the king of all crime thriller writers.”

 

NO MAJOR SPOILERS

I had recently come across an article which discussed at length about the increasing number of Scandinavian/Nordic thriller writers who are outdoing the authors from rest of the world both in terms of quality as well as quantity. Jo Nesbo was on my radar since then. And I must say he has exceeded all expectations.

The Thirst is the 11th novel in the Harry Hole series and there are numerous references to Harry’s past glories and failures but in no way does it make the book any less enjoyable for someone like me who hasn’t read any of the Harry Hole thrillers from yesteryears. In hindsight, I would rather read them all sequentially but then again, you read whatever is available at that moment.

There are so many things that I loved about this book. Multi layered plot, easily relatable characters and situations (yes it’s the 21st century, so Tinder and Facebook are used extensively), number of anti climaxes and something rather  unique –  there will be many chapters where he will be describing a scene/an act/a dialogue where you are absolutely sure what’s happening. And then out of nowhere, he delivers a punch whence you realise he was talking about someone else –  now that is what I call extremely clever writing(he does kinda overdo it in the end but granted, it had me stumped 90% of the time). And Harry Hole isn’t your Hercule Poirot or Sherlock Holmes (my two most favourite fictional detectives), he is just Harry Hole (you have to read the Novel to discover his personality).

The murders are extremely graphic and the idea as far as I know, very unique.

The only thing he could have done better is probably cut down on the length of the novel. There were a few paragraphs which I thought weren’t required at all.

Overall, an amazing book and an author you must try.

4/5.

 

Reviewed by:

Aditya Singh

Added 5th November 2017

More Reviews By
Aditya Singh