Knife by Jo Nesbø - review

Dipso detective Harry Hole, last seen in The Thirst (2017), is back on the booze. Our disgraced hero has been relegated to a far corner of the office to re-examine cold cases — and thrown out of the house by the love of his life, Rakel. And then, in a twist that some fans will find hard to take, Rakel is stabbed to death. Not many thriller writers can move you to tears but Nesbø can: “love is a process of loss.”

At first Harry is convinced that a recently released serial rapist known as The Fiancé is responsible. He not only succeeded in putting this spooky sicko away for a long time but also left him with a hole in his hand.

Svein Finne craves revenge. However, the evidence begins to suggest that Harry, in a blackout, could have killed Rakel himself.

Blades, unsurprisingly, loom large in Knife: Finne has a collection of 26, including an Indian Rampuri, an Indonesian karambit — shaped like a tiger’s claw — and a Finnish puukko. Nesbø, sharp-witted as ever, keeps the complex, burnished narrative on, um, a knife-edge as Harry, suicidal and sober, tries to find out the horrible truth. Nesbø remains the king of Scandinavian noir.

Knife by Jo Nesbø​ (Harvill Secker, £20)