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Published May 2014
416 pages
Genre: Thrillers
Publication Information
The author of the best-selling Harry Hole series now gives us an electrifying stand-alone novel set inside Oslo's maze of especially venal, high-level corruption.
Sonny Lofthus is a strangely charismatic and complacent young man. Sonny's been in prison for a dozen years, nearly half his life. The inmates who seek out his uncanny abilities to soothe leave his cell feeling absolved. They don't know or care that Sonny has a serious heroin habit - or where or how he gets his uninterrupted supply of the drug. Or that he's serving time for other peoples' crimes.
Sonny took the first steps toward addiction when his father took his own life rather than face exposure as a corrupt cop. Now Sonny is the seemingly malleable center of a whole infrastructure of corruption: prison staff, police, lawyers, a desperate priest - all of them focused on keeping him high and in jail. And all of them under the thumb of the Twin, Oslo's crime overlord. As long as Sonny gets his dope, he's happy to play the criminal and the prison's in-house savior.
But when he learns a stunning, long-hidden secret concerning his father, he makes a brilliantly executed escape from prison—and from the person he'd let himself become - and begins hunting down those responsible for the crimes against him... The darkly looming question is: Who will get to him first - the criminals or the cops?
"Starred Review. Excellent... Nesbø takes the reader on a chilling ride with many unexpected twists." - Publishers Weekly
"Starred Review. One of Nesbø's best, deepest and richest novels, even without Harry Hole." - Kirkus
"[An] exceptional, gritty, fast-paced stand-alone thriller; the smooth transitions among each character's perspectives lure readers in, and Barslund's translation is accessible to American readers." - Library Journal
"Nesbo's new book makes all the hype before publication seem like false modesty, and is quite simply a fantastic piece of crime literature… First and foremost, this is a clever, enthralling and driven story that is impossible to put down." - Dagens Næringsliv (Norway)
"It is still early in the year, but I wouldn't be surprised if someone should dub The Son as the crime novel of the year."
- Ekstra Bladet (Denmark)
"The pace proves to be on top in the new book, in a positive sense. This remains Norwegian crime literature in a class by itself... Jo Nesbo prevails once again." - Dagsavisen (Norway)
"The Son is a modern take on the story about Christ, that tackles the corruption in Oslo… Jo Nesbo's writing is incredible as usual." - Jyllands-Posten (Denmark)
"Tremendously well written by Nesbo… There is something unstoppably vital about Jo Nesbo as a designer of crime stories in the baroque style. His pen is on fire and although it may be noted that it goes too fast sometimes linguistically, the stories he creates has so many staggering twists and turns that it is almost physically impossible not to get hooked." - Aftenposten (Norway)
"Crime novels are rarely so skillfully told and at the same time so much more than pure entertainment. But Nesbo is a master." - Berlingske (Denmark)
"No Norwegian crime writer can create such complex crime plots without losing in detail like Nesbo can. You might say that Nesbo is both high and low in his texts, and that is one of the main reasons why they rise above most other novels in this genre."
- Dagbladet (Norway)
"It is a formidable, diabolically clever and devilishly good book that is well put together down to the smallest detail." - Nordjyske Stiftstidene (Denmark)
This information about The Son 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 one of the world's bestselling crime writers, with The Leopard, Phantom, Police, The Son and his latest Harry Hole novel, The Thirst, all topping the Sunday Times bestseller charts. He's an international number one bestseller and his books are published in 50 languages, selling over 33 million copies around the world.
Before becoming a crime writer, Nesbo played football for Norway's premier league team Molde, but his dream of playing professionally for Spurs was dashed when he tore ligaments in his knee at the age of eighteen. After three years military service he attended business school and formed the band Di derre ('Them There'). They topped the charts in Norway, but Nesbo continued working as a financial analyst, crunching numbers during the day and gigging at night. ...
... Full Biography
Link to Jo Nesbo's Website
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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