Cockroaches: The Second Inspector Harry Hole Novel

Book Description

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

When the Norwegian ambassador to Thailand is found dead in a Bangkok brothel, Inspector Harry Hole is dispatched from Oslo to help hush up the case.

But once he arrives Harry discovers that this case is about much more than one random murder. There is something else, something more pervasive, scrabbling around behind the scenes. Or, put another way, for every cockroach you see in your hotel room, there are hundreds behind the walls. Surrounded by round-the-clock traffic noise, Harry wanders the streets of Bangkok lined with go-go bars, temples, opium dens, and tourist traps, trying to piece together the story of the ambassador's death even though no one asked him to, and no one wants him to--not even Harry himself.

From the Trade Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist With the publication of this second novel in the Harry Hole series, all 10 Hole novels are now available in the U.S. It's disconcerting for fans to read the series out of order (we know what demons await the beleaguered Harry), but, that aside, this is a compelling, hard-edged thriller that can stand on its own. It wasn't until the third novel, Redbreast (2007), that the series took on its classic Scandinavian noir feel; in the opener (The Bat, 2013), Hole was sent to Australia to solve a crime involving a Norwegian, and here he's on the road again, this time to Thailand, where the Norwegian ambassador has been found dead in a Bangkok brothel. The plot is satisfyingly twisty, with Harry wandering through the city's notorious red-light district in search of clues and tempted by the booze and drugs that will derail him throughout the series. But we also see both Harry's almost Holmesian flair for deductive reasoning and the sensitivity that makes him vulnerable. Don't look to the Scandinavians for read-alikes this time; rather, try John Burdett's Sonchai Jitpleecheep series, also set in Bangkok's morally ambiguous demimonde. --Bill Ott

Review

"Nesbø never lets a page go by without making characters and situations vivid." --Houston Chronicle

"The world is dark and frozen, according to Nordic noir, and so is the human heart. But it's the magic Nesbø works with the genre's tropes that matters.... [He] might be my favorite of the lot." --Michael Robbins, Chicago Tribune

"Satisfyingly twisty.... A compelling, hard-edged thriller." --Booklist

"Excellent... the most popular among [Nesbø's] earlier novels and one that casts a cold eye on the reality of expatriate life of some Europeans in Asia." --The Irish Independent

"The complex narrative and large dramatis personae are handled with steely authority... The picturesque seediness of Bangkok and Thailand turns out to be Harry Hole's natural element, with Nesbo plumping his hero down in a very non-Norwegian setting." --The Independent (UK)

Praise for Jo Nesbø

"Nesbø writes like an angel. As in Lucifer." --The Philadelphia Inquirer

"Harry Hole is fast becoming one of the planet's favorite detectives. And his demons are almost as legendary as his observational and analytical skills." --The Mirror (UK)

"Nesbø explores the darkest criminal minds with grim delight and puts his killer where you least expect to find them.... His novels are maddeningly addictive." --Vanity Fair