Cockroaches: The Second Inspector Harry Hole Novel Author: Jo Nesbo | Language: English | ISBN:
B00FO5YFX4 | Format: EPUB
Cockroaches: The Second Inspector Harry Hole Novel 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.- File Size: 1661 KB
- Print Length: 386 pages
- Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0345807154
- Publisher: Vintage; Reprint edition (February 11, 2014)
- Sold by: Random House LLC
- Language: English
- ASIN: B00FO5YFX4
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #514 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #5
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Mystery > International Mystery & Crime - #5
in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Mystery > International Mystery & Crime - #6
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Crime Fiction > Murder
- #5
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Mystery > International Mystery & Crime - #5
in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Mystery > International Mystery & Crime - #6
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Crime Fiction > Murder
English speakers were first introduced to the work of Norwegian author Jo Nesbo and his damaged main character Harry Hole, in 2006, with the publication of The Redbreast, the third book in the Harry Hole series, a novel so good that it won the award for Best Norwegian Crime Novel Ever Written, as chosen by Norwegian Book Clubs. Now, after eight enormously successful novels in that series, Nesbo’s publishers have published the first two novels of the series, The Bat, and Cockroaches, written when Nesbo was a much less accomplished novelist than he has become in the ensuing fifteen years.
In Cockroaches, Detective Harry Hole is chosen by the Norwegian Foreign Office to go to Thailand to investigate the murder of Norway’s ambassador to Thailand, who has been found in a brothel with an elaborate old knife in his back. Hole himself is a psychological mess, an alcoholic trying to stay sober, and he has no interest in going to Thailand, even for a short time, to investigate this murder. He suspects he has been chosen because they expect him to fail so the foreign office can close the case without having to reveal nasty and embarrassing details.
In Bangkok, Harry gets started on the case and quickly discovers that the ambassador was a practitioner of many perversions, including paedophilia and child pornography. The knife used to kill him belonged to the most powerful heroin dealer in history, who now finances most of the new hotels in Burma and manages the opium trade in the north of Thailand. In addition, the ambassador is addicted to gambling and is indebted to loan sharks.
I haven't read any of Jo Nesbo's detective novels in the Harry Hole series so was keen to read this one because it is #2 in the series and I always try to read a series in order if I can. All of the later books in the series have been translated from Norwegian ahead of this book so there was probably a clue that this was not one of his better books.
Harry Hole is a complex but flawed character, a skilled detective and investigator who thinks outside the box but personally a very troubled individual who hits the bottle hard when he is not working.
The Norwegian Ambassador to Thailand, Atle Molnes, is found stabbed with an ancient oriental knife in a seedy Motel, come brothel on the outskirts of Bangkok. Molnes has been a senior Christian Democratic politician who was given the posting by his close political friend who had recently become Prime Minister. An urgent meeting between influential people in the Prime Minister's Department, Foreign Affairs and the Crime Squad quickly agree that the matter must be investigated quickly without undue public attention. They decide to send one investigator to help the local police with their investigations. Harry Hole is their unanimous selection based on his recent performance in solving a case in Sydney.
After quickly sobering up, Hole flies to Bangkok to meet his local counterparts. Nesbo does a great job in describing conditions is Bangkok, the heat, traffic, noise, bars etc., the life of an ex-pat and the diplomatic community, and the way the local police operate.
Hole quickly gets to know the Embassy staff, the Ambassador's wife, Hilde, and her teenage daughter and several key Norwegian ex-patriots in Bangkok.
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