Novels No. 27 (LL345)

 

Jo Nesbo. Blood on Snow. 2015. Vintage Crime/Penguin Random House, 2016.

A novella from the creator of Harry Hole. Typically Nesbo, it has gore, but it has his redeeming virtues of excellent character definition and insightful writing. Narrator Olav is a fixer for Daniel Hoffman, a big player in providing Oslo with illicit drugs and activities. Admittedly, Olav is not much good at most criminal actions ‒ what with being dyslexic and having a weakness for defending women ‒ but his forte is wiping out anyone who crosses his boss and he's good at it. Also, he is not verbally adept; he struggles with expressing his inner thoughts and philosophizing in writing. For no overt reason, he paid off a large debt that had devolved to deaf-and-dumb Maria, thus she could avoid prostitution for paying it off. Only "The Fisherman" rivals Hoffman for control of the city's dark side. Having disposed of three of The Fisherman's men, Olav is careful to watch his back.

To his surprise, Olav's new mission is to terminate his boss's wife Corina. As ordered by Hoffman. The woman is having an affair with an unknown man—an abusive man, as Olav discovers during his preparatory surveillance. And so is set in motion a series of cascading events that would be funny if not deadly. Mentally and physically, Olav handles coffins, a church crypt, Corina, Les Miserables, The Fisherman's henchmen, a Chinese Pizza Special, and masses of winter snow. The book could be called Anatomy of a Hit Man, a great stand-alone introduction to Nesbo's world.

Bits

▪ So what if I dealt a decent card to a girl who'd been given such a lousy hand? (10)

▪ What is it that makes us realise we're going to die? What is it that happens on the day when we acknowledge it isn't just a possibility, but an unavoidable fucking fact that our life will come to an end? (26)

▪ You've only been there until now because there hasn't been anyone else. You filled a vacuum that I never used to know existed. (32)

▪ Some women don't know what's best for them, they just leak love without demanding anything in return. (33-4)

▪ My father said I was studying to become an idiot. (82)

▪ To be more precise: no one ‒ and by that I do literally mean no one ‒ knew where I lived. (47)

▪ "I don't get you, Olav. Why did you want to save me? Me?" (113)

▪ "Are you scared I'll tell you I'm not the person you're hoping I might be?" (114)

▪ "How does it feel?" Klein suddenly asked. "Getting ready to fix your own boss?" (122)

▪ I told her I loved her. Just to see how it felt to say it to someone. (149)

▪ "You're not the first man to get a bullet in him." (157)

Waiting

I had all the time in the world. I liked waiting. I liked the time between making the decision and carrying it out. They were the only minutes, hours, days of my admittedly short life when I was someone. I was someone's destiny. (36)

Jonathan Ames. The Wheel of Doll. Ebook download from TPL's Libby. Mulholland Books/Little, Brown and Company, 2023.

Quirky, unlicensed California private eye Hank Doll has reverted to his true given name: Happy Doll, as he reminds old friends. I know I read his first adventure, A Man Named Doll, but the title has mysteriously disappeared from my indexes. Since Hap's last go-round with bad guys, he's been attracted to Buddhist philosophy, which suits his nature and life with his beloved dog George. Unfortunately his work for clients often involves violence. Mary DeAngelo, for example. Finding her missing mother seemed innocuous enough. Until Hap learned a) Mary has a shady, cosmetically-altered husband called Hoyt Marrow, and b) Mary's mother is Ines Candle, a vivacious drifter whom Hap was smitten with, years ago. Off he goes to Olympia in Washington state to locate her in a homeless encampment ‒ broke, filthy, and an amputee. She's still on heroin/methadone but she has the same indomitable spirit that attracted him in the first place. Overcome with feelings and memories, Hap realizes that caring for her now, come what may, makes him happier than he's ever been. But crime strikes swiftly, and a bereft Hap has to face reality.

Reality involves a good deal of being beaten up and shooting. But worse is Hap's transition from his normal marijuana haze of being a decent person to frantic coke snorter every few hours, punctuated with slugs of whatever booze is available, until you wonder how he can stay upright let alone clobber the would-be killers. Did I say he's also sleepless and bullet-ridden? It's not only the man's character that degenerates, but the plot goes south too, making it a tough but duty-bound slog to the bitter end. Disappointing; no more, thank you.

Bits

▪ Tall and willowy, strange and beautiful, she came through that door like someone coming from a different time. (28)

▪ It felt so good to care for someone—to care for Ines—I felt flooded with love like a narcotic. (121)

▪ I had been down this road with her before: this impossible and deluded wish to save someone who could not be saved. (132)

▪ I could feel twitches moving under the skin of my face like bedbugs, but I kept them in. It was important to keep everything in. (141)

▪ I had killed him, unnecessarily; I had lost control during the fight—and panicked with regret, I staggered into the bathroom and drank from the tap, trying to get sane. (168)

▪ The dual training wheels of my analysis and my nascent Buddhism had gone flying off back in Olympia, and I was on my own now: violent, regressed, brokenhearted. (220)

▪ "Everybody's half pimp, half whore. We all answer to somebody." (232)

▪ I was cat-scratched, sleep-deprived, coked-up, bleeding internally, and I had been set up by two con artists to put the finger on Ines and have her killed. (232)