Dr. John A. King, an Australian Aboriginal writer, explains how Joe Nesbø's Harry Hole novels shaped his own crime fiction. He praises Redbreast as the point where the character fully crystallizes, and recommends starting there or reading chronologically from The Bat.
Hey, so let's talk about Joe Nesbø. Let me give you some thoughts on Joe. I, I love him as an author. I'm finishing up a novel called Till It's Done. It's a neo-noir novel that I'm writing, and my agent suggested I do some research, reading. Writers read, that's what we do. And so I started to read his books, but what has been a real privilege is reading the transition of the writer From his first novel to his third novel. Now he's a very successful Scandinavian author. So The Bat, his first Harry Hole novel, was set in Australia and deals with Indigenous people. And I'm an Imbrani man. I'm Australian Aboriginal. So very insightful that the awareness he had and the insight he had into culture. So loved it on that level. Loved seeing the start of Harry and watching this protagonist mature between His first book and what I would say is his best book, Redbreast, which is his third book. Now he's gone on and written a bunch of others, but this is a tremendous book. Go from The Bat to Cockroaches, which is set in Thailand, and you start to see Harry come forward, or you start to see Nesbo get to know Harry on a whole different level. So phenomenal. But then we see him jump into Redbreast, and I really feel that The Harry in his 7th novel is really reflected and started to be Harry Hole by his 3rd novel. And this is a tremendous read. Now let's talk about Snowman. Very popular movie. It got panned because they really did a bad job of capturing the book, I believe. And it was a real challenge for me to have watched the movie first and then come and try to read Nesbø's book about it. And I didn't like this book. The reason I didn't like this book is because I watched the movie and I liked the movie, but their treatment of the character was too shallow. And I think so, every one of these books is standalone, but there's something that happens with your connection connector and the connection with the main character that I really felt happened for me. It was like a click inside. It really clicked inside me for Redbreast. So if you're looking at a good Neo-noir, police procedural, crime thriller, very twisty-turny. Like, this guy has— he's really— he is exceptional at the twist and the turn. So I would give— I'd give Nesbø a go. And if you want to start somewhere, I'd start at the beginning, but Red Rest you can read as a standalone, and it's a bloody good read. All right, cheerio. Thanks very much.
