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A Blood on Snow Novel
by Jo Nesbo
The internationally acclaimed author of Blood on Snow and the Harry Hole novels now gives us the tightly wound tale of a man running from retribution, a renegade hitman who goes to ground far above the Arctic circle, where the never-setting sun might slowly drive a man insane.
He calls himself Ulf - as good a name as any, he thinks - and the only thing he's looking for is a place where he won't be found by Oslo's most notorious drug lord: the Fisherman. He was once the Fisherman's fixer, but after betraying him, Ulf is now the one his former boss needs fixed - which may not be a problem for a man whose criminal reach is boundless. When Ulf gets off the bus in Kåsund, on Norway's far northeastern border, he sees a "flat, monotonous, bleak landscape ... the perfect hiding place. Hopefully."
The locals - native Sami and followers of a particularly harsh Swedish version of Christianity - seem to accept Ulf's explanation that he's come to hunt, even if he has no gun and the season has yet to start. And a bereaved, taciturn woman and her curious, talkative young son supply him with food, the use of a cabin deep in the woods, a weapon - and companionship that stirs something in him he thought was long dead.
But the agonizing wait for the inevitable moment when the Fisherman's henchmen will show - the midnight sun hanging in the sky like an unblinking, all-revealing eye - forces him to question if redemption is at all possible or if, as he's always believed, "hope is a real bastard."
"Starred Review. Immaculately plotted and perfectly paced, the book is also darkly funny and deadly serious. Scandinavian gloom notwithstanding, it has a neatly satisfying and surprisingly moving ending." - Publishers Weekly
"Wasting not a word, [Nesbø] paints an indelible portrait of a criminal loser who reflects when he's faced with the supreme threat to his existence that 'it was actually hard to think of anyone who was more dispensable than me.'" - Kirkus
"Crime novel, character study, and closed-society romance, it all balances nicely until an improbable escape and an ending that feels just a little too pat. It's hard to be too dark when the sun won't stop shining." - Booklist
"Nesbø delivers a tale of hope and redemption in this brief story of a man who blunders into a life of crime and then tries to extricate himself with a minimum of damage to those around him. Although this is unlike the author's gritty "Harry Hole" stories, it is wholeheartedly recommended for Nesbø fans and readers who enjoy strong character development." - Library Journal
This information about Midnight Sun was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Jo Nesbo is a #1 New York Times bestselling author, whose books have sold sixty million copies worldwide and have been translated into fifty languages. In addition to the Harry Hole series, his novels include The Night House, Headhunters, The Son, Blood on Snow, Midnight Sun, Macbeth, and The Kingdom. He is a recipient of the Raymond Chandler Award for lifetime achievement. He lives in Oslo.
Name Pronunciation
Jo Nesbo: According to the author's website, Jo is pronounced like 'you', and Jo says the 'o' in Nesbo is similar to the vowel in Inspector Clouseau's pronunciation of the word 'bomb'
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