The Redeemer

by Jo Nesbø
397 pgs (Harry Hole series #6)

In The Redeemer, the sixth book in Jo Nesbø's Harry Hole series, Hole is up against a professional assassin named Stankic, a former Croat soldier, who gained the nickname "Little Redeemer" during the war that broke up Yugoslavia.

The story begins back in 1991 with the rape of a 14-year-old girl at a youth camp run by the Norwegian Salvation Army. The girl's attacker was never found. The story then jumps ahead twenty-two years to the killing of a Salvation Army officer during an outdoor Christmas concert in Oslo. When the brother of the officer killed is later the target of a murder attempt, the Norwegian police believe the brothers' entire family is being targeted and Harry is assigned to the case.

Harry's investigations tie the two brothers back to the same youth camp where the young girl was raped, and eventually lead him to Croatia and onto the trail of Stankic, who has one more killing to complete before he plans to retire. As Harry closes in, Stankic becomes desperate and even more dangerous, until it's Harry's life that's on the line.

The Redeemer is a slight departure from the previous books in the series in both style and feel. I thought Nesbø held a lot of key aspects of the story back for most of the book, which ultimately led to a very satisfying conclusion, and I found my impressions of Harry changed more in this book than in any of the others so far. He's still a broken and conflicted protagonist, but I found him much more sympathetic in this one.

If you've never read any of the books in the series, this probably isn't the one to start with. It's good, but I think it's much better if you're familiar with the events that have led up to this one.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆